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To start off, i was hoping to try and plant an aquarium. In all honesty, i hardly have any experience, so i was looking for opinions, suggestions, and basically anything to help me along.

Requested Suggestions:

Lighting

Plant types

Gravel

Structures (Driftwood/Rocks or whatever)

Water parameters

Anything else that would be helpful

Thanks!!!!!!!

†Aquapickle†

Lighting:
Depends on what plants you want to keep. For a low tech setup, I'd aim for 2wpg of flourescent lighting(I don't know exactly how much this would be since you didn't specify tank size). This will allow you to have an assortment of plants to chose from.

Plants:
Going with the suggested 2wpg, I'd get some easy stems like hygro, ludwiggia, bacopa, a foreground of crypt wendtii green, and maybe some anubias nana for a different leaf shape. Java moss or fern on the driftwood mentioned below would look nice. Just make sure to plant as much of the tank as possible from the get go, it makes life MUCH easier.

Gravel:
For a low tech, medium light setup as described above, a 50/50 mix of flourite and normal pea gravel would be nice.

Structures:
I'd chose a nice peice of driftwood, and maybe some rocks as a focal point and build off that.

Water parameters:
in a low tech planted tank, it's usually better to keep most levels low, because plants won't be sucking up nutrients like crazy.

Anything else:
DIY CO2, if you feel up to the task, always helps growth and helps keep algae away.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Other very important things to consider are size, and shape of tank. Fish you have or intend to have. All this can cost a lot of money to do a very good planted tank especialy if it is a large tank and you use the better quality lighting, filtration, and Co2.

Plants require a good 1-3mm substrate 3-4ins deep.

It is basically small/low plants at the front and taller as you move towards the back of the tank. A small non standard shape require different plants to a large natural looking tank.

Aquscaping plays a very important part of planting rocks, and driftwood. Some plants cannot grow in substrate and prefer to be tied with fishing line to drift wood or rocks.

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
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aquapickle27,

I am with Keith on this one, I think in order to provide you with any specific advice we would need to know quite a bit about the tank and your conditions.

So, can you be so nice and describe the tank for us, with everything that comes to mind?
And while you are at it, do you happen to know your tab water parameters, like ph, GH, and KH?

Hope we will have fun ,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

The tank size is a 29 gal. (Sits Horizontal). I currently have about 2-3 in. of gravel (little rocks) and a few fake structures ( and am willing to replace anything i need to get rid of).

The problem right now is that i have it set up as a community tank and i have about 20 fish in it.

Like i said in the previous post, "i dont know much," what does "KH" and "GH" mean?

These are the parameters that i know:

PH: 7.4

AMMONIA: None

TEMP: 70 degrees

LIGHTING: 20 watts flourescent


Note: It has been running for a little over two years (non-stop) and seems to be doing well.

Sorry i dont know more, but that is some info on it. Hope it helps.

†Aquapickle†

To save a lot of time and confusion I strongly suggest you buy or some are free little booklets on Aquariums then you will understand a lot of terms used here. In several of the topics there is a lot of infomation which will help you read them first this will also help.

In the meantime keep asking questions especially answering when asked a question.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

aquapickle27,

Your answers are not too bad and give me some idea about your tank (I have a 29G as well). Your dimensions should be around 30 x 12 x 18, right?

20 fish in a 29G is quite a large fishload, in particular when the tank is not fully planted (or at least medium planted). What fish are these (species and number of each) ?

KH means carbonate hardness and is a measure that is used to evaluate how much CO2 your water can hold (in combination with ph).
GH is the general hardness of the water and gives you an idea of how many goodies are dissolved in your water. Some plants don't like really hard water.

Your ph and so forth seems good, but your temperature would be a little on the cool side if your inhabitants are tropical fish.

Your current light is rather weak (you bought a tank set, I guess). 20w will not give you too many options on plants, mostly low light like Anubias, Crypts, Java Fern, and Java Moss would suit this setup.

Plain gravel as a substrate also eliminates all plants that rely on nutrients that they recive via their root system, except if you would use these plant sticks that are placed close to the plant roots.

Are you planning to upgrade your light?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

A planted tank can be a bit on the expensive side, but well worth it in the end. The fish will be much happier and you will be too.

I just set up a 29g tank. I am slowly planting it, as I am on a budget. The light I bought is this one. I love the coralife fixtures and also have one on my 55g (a bigger one of course). That will give you 2.24wpg and you would be able to grow medium light plants such as wisteria, rotala indica, dwarf sag, and the plants LittleFish mentioned.
Like mentioned before, plant it as much as you can to begin with. I didn't have the money to plant my 29g heavily when I set it up, so now I am dealing with algae.

With that amount of light, you don't need CO2, but it would help if you wanted to go in that direction.

If your gravel is small, it will be fine. You can always add fertilizers to the water if you don't want to change over to Flourite or another specialized substrate. That is what I do. I have small 3mm natural colored gravel and I add ferts.

Driftwood and rocks are great and make a planted tank very nice. Look through some of the logs to see how other people use DW and rocks in their aquascapes.

You really should consider a heater...especially if you have tropical fish. Most tropical fish like their water around 76F. I have a Visi-therm Stealth 150 heater in my 29g. They are pretty inexpensive and work great.

If you don't already have one, a background would be a good thing to get. Black or dark blue backgrounds make the plants stand out more and even make your fish look nice.

*Kristin*

Yes, i do plan to upgrade to a far better lighting system.

I also plan to get another heater with a little more power, i am trying to keep it warm with a 15-20 gal. heater, (my good one broke).

Quick question: Do LFS sell driftwood and special substrates?

Keith: Thank you for the advice on doing some reading, i found what PH, KH, and GH mean and what part they all play in the health of the tank.

Fish:
I agree that my tank is overstocked, i would like to get rid of some, but i dont know where.

I have:

5 neon tetras
6 glowlite tetras
3 black neon tetras
3 green cories
1 emerald and 1 false spotted cory
2 mollies
1 pleco

Note: i dont have any other aquariums to put the fish in, but i am going to purchase one really soon.


†Aquapickle†

Do LFS sell driftwood and special substrates?

Yes


What to do with too many fish? Well, you could ask in the LFS if they would take them, it might be worth a try.

How soon are you getting another tank?

And for this one, what exactly are your "upgrade" visions?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Actually, we might be doing a decent upgrade, from this 29 gal, to about a 70+gal tank. But i am also looking to buy a 20 gal. long.

I am not sure how soon we will be getting the big one, but for the 20 gal, about 1-2weeks. (I hope)

†Aquapickle†

Now you are talking

And for the 20G Long, if you want to get some ideas, Here is mine.

Have fun,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Wow! That is impressive!

Question: Can you plant a tank with quite a few plants and not use co2. What exactly does the co2 do?

Do you need more lights for more plants or can you plant a tank with one light?

†Aquapickle†

Plants need 3 things besides water to grow, Nutrients, Light, and CO2. Quite a few plants will survive with low light (let's say 20w on a 20G Long = 1 flourecent bulb), the occasional (once or twice a week) shot of Flourish Excel for CO2, and some basic fertilizer products available at the LFS (or in other forms and cheaper). Overall I would say you should read up on plant requirements before getting into this beautiful segment of the hobby. It is well worth the time spent.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I have never used Co2 in my big tank and that is very heavly planted with Anubias. Also I have a lot of surface water movement and that is not suitable when using Co2. The same goes for my Betta Tank.
It is good to see that you bought some books now you can understand it a lot better and know exactly what questions to ask for a fuller explanation.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

Cool you are doing the neon, glowlight, black neon thing. I want to have them all too in my 29g...not sure if it would be overstocked though. Right now I have 8 neons, 4 glowlights, and 6 panda cories.

Everyone has given you good advice. Good luck with your tank!

*Kristin*

This is the gravel i have now:

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/aquapickle27/IMG_3243.jpg

Do you think that this will work when planting, or should i get a different substrate?

GirlieGirl: Here is a pic of some of my tetra school:

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/aquapickle27/IMG_3214.jpg

†Aquapickle†

Nice fish. I have always wanted Serpaes...just have never been able to work the aggressive little things in a tank.
Your gravel looks fine to me. I would try to pick out as much of the big rocks as you can (the ones that are alot bigger than the rest).

*Kristin*

Okay i will remove the larger rocks.

Is this so that the plants can anchor better or what?

Thank you for the suggestions, and for the compliment, i found serpaes to be agressive too, so i got rid of some and they were less nippy in a smaller group.

†Aquapickle†

Is this so that the plants can anchor better or what

Yes, and so the roots don't get too compacted by the larger rocks. If there are not too many, then you could leave them. But, if they are all mixed in I would try to remove them as best you can. I'm not a plant expert but I believe the reason for getting the smaller gravel is so the roots don't get compacted and so that food and stuff doesn't get where you can't clean it out.
Other people may tell you its fine to leave them...take their advice if they say that...like I said, I'm no expert.

*Kristin*