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i currently have a full hood with a 24" tube which is 20W. when i get money, ill upgrade my lighting. so i was wondering how much lighting i would need and is there any thing else i need besides better lighting.

I'm not sure if you are talking about your 30G or your 10G but lighting aside, you will need a fine gravel, not as fine as sand fine pea gravel will do just fine. There are other substrates that are more "specialized for plants like eco complete, laterite, plant growing bed and such, you also want to think about the fish in the tank, some of them can lower your ph.
Now it all depends on what kind of plants you are looking forward to keep, but most of them do great if you provide the following:
-Patience
-A plan on what you want your tank to look like
-Good lighting
-Adequate substrate
-CO2 Injection, not a must but does help a lot
-Fertilization, a good source of liquid or tab fertilization that contains Iron, since most of plants need it to be in perfect health. (I recommend Master Grow by Tropica)
-Plant list and a provider

I guess that's it

[span class="edited"][Edited by Falstaf 2004-07-12 21:52][/span]

some of them can lower your ph

Yeah, and some of them can increase your pH.

i have black gravel from big als which is like pea sized so i guess thats ok. for the lighting, how many WPG would i need?

Well it al depends on which plants you want to keep or what kind of ecosystem you want to emulate, usually 3WPG (watts per gallon) day light or fluorescent is a good amount of lighting.