Planting beginner looking for advice.

[Simoriax]

Once my new 48"x18"x15" tank is here i plan to plant it. I have kept tropical fish for seven years and never had ****a planted tank before. I did try with a two footer but they all just died.

What type of lighting should i use? I have a CO unit, will i need it? I like using sandy substrate, is this ok for plants? What about fertilisers? Or any other rookie mistakes I'm likely to make but maybe can avoid. Last time i tried i could not stop algae taking over my plants, how do you stop that?

Cheers

[Damon]

I'll try to answer this as in depth as I can..............
Sand is a descent substrate for plants. While there are better (eco complete, fluorite, laterite, aquasoil) you can use sand (better with a layer of laterite underneath it) for planted tanks. With a 4 foot tank, you have a cpl of options. N.O (normal output) flourescent lighting is viable, but you will need 4 bulbs or so. Power compact is more energy efficient and requires less bulbs, but tends to leave dark spots in the corners of the tanks. T5 lighting is great but rather expensive. Metal Halide is also expensive but works well if you plant to have your lighting suspended above an open top tank. You will want 2-4wpg over your tank.
As for fertilizers, I would recommend Tropica's Mastergrow in the beginning. Once you do some reading and begin to understand the nutrients plants need (lighting, CO2, trace elements, micronutrients, and macronutrients), I would then order supplies from http://www.gregwatson.com Here you can purchase what you need individually (Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphate, and trace elements with iron added) and dose depending on what is lacking. Co2 is always helpful and a good range is 20-30ppm.
Check out http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com and http://www.plantgeek.net as these 2 sites are wonderful resources for beginners and gurus.

[Simoriax]

thanks for the reply. There are a lot of differnt types of bulbs (interpet dayplud etc). Which is the best brand and model to go for?

[MyraVan]

My opinion is that you should start out fairly simple, and if you find you like growing plants you can buy more expensive stuff, like CO2 injection, later.

The two most important things are substrate and lighting. I would aim for about 2wpg, for your tank. If you use less that that, you'll be a bit more limited in the plants you can grow. More than that and you'll pretty much have to add CO2 injection, or else you'll have lots of algae.

As far as substrate, sand isn't too bad, but as Simpte says it helps to have something more nurtritios underneath it, like Flourite, or Laterite, or a small layer of peat for use in houseplants, or special aquatic soil. If you use soil-based stuff, thought, use only a thin layer of it (I think less than 1/2" would be OK) to avoid it staining your water yellow.

As far as CO2 goes, start out by knowing the hardness and pH of your water. If you have quite hard water, you'll probably have high pH (well above 7) and you will have very little dissolved CO2, see
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/kh-ph-co2-chart.html
You can use this to your advantage: get plants that come from hardwater areas and they will use bicarbonate in the water, so you won't really need to worry about CO2. In my hardwater tanks, hornwort and vallis grow extremely well.

I also have good luck with Cyrtocornes, even though they aren't hardwater plants. Sagittaria is a good one too, although I'm not sure what kind of water it comes from!

If you have a good substrate and good lighting, and you choose a wide selection of plants, including a few that are supposed to be easy beginner plants and fast growing plants, you will definitely succeed in growing plants. You may not grow certain particular plants (for example, Cabomba is hard to grow) but you certainly will get a nice selection of good growing plants.

[atltk]

I have a DIY CO2 system set up that I do not replenish as often as I should. There is a noticable difference in all my plants when I put in a fresh batch or keep the meduim constantly fermenting.

[Simoriax]

I just spent 100 quid on lighting, laterite and other little bits... yikes

[mlefev]

Ouch! amazing how much all this stuff can cost. I don't have a heavily planted tank, but I use this plant-gro chemical in mine. It's like 15$ a bottle, but you use 1 capful per 10 gallons (which I use about half a capful in my 10-gal) once per week. The fish don't seem to mind it in the least, and my plants all have roots to china. Lol I may have as much root as plant at this point in time. They're all growing great though, so I think it works well. Of course after all that stuff you just went and bought you're probably not wanting to buy anything else right now, but if you start having problems keeping them alive, you might try that stuff.

Also remember, that just like a regular house plant, if you see parts dying, get them off the plant. They're a drain on the plant's system, and make a big old mess in the tank.