couple plant related questions

[Ownager2004]

Ive been wondering if I can turn my tank into a planted tank. Ive removed all the old substrate I had in the tank(slowly). Its a 10 gallon with a penguin mini HOB filter. I have a 15 watt "plant" bulb in the hood. Also have a compact flourescent dayglo bulb positioned so It can shine in the tank a little (not sure if it really helps or not). As for fish I have an adult female guppy and 5 1.5 month old fry as well as 14 younger fry I will be adding later. Ill be giving the ones I dont like to the LFS when they get a little older.

I wont be doing any CO2 injection (either to messy or to expensive for me to bother with at the moment), but I do have some flourish excel and flourish...

Does anyone think Ill be able to have any success with this setup? Id like to plant it as densly as possible.

Ive already bought 2 plants... a Echinodorus compacta (swordplant) and some java moss. Ive got the java moss tied lightly to a nice looking aquarium ornament at the moment... What type of substrate should i use in this tank? Ive read swordplants are heavy root feeders... Anyone know how to help them out with that?

Also there isn't a whole lot of selection at the LFS, but if you guys could make some suggestions that would be great Especially in the foreground/ground cover deparment.

Thanks

[Damon]

There is a sticky for easy to grow plants in this section. As for the setup, it can work just fine. Be prepared for initial plant dieoff and regrowth. Slow growth is to be expected also. As for substrate, any of the commercial ones will work.