Looking to start a planted tank.

[Evildude]

Hi guys, it's been a while since I visited the forums and I'm now thinking about stetting up a 10Gal tank I've had laying around for a while.
I have successfully kept a 10Gal since 09 and I now want to see if I can start another one, this time is going to be planted.

I really want it to take on a river kind of look, but I seem to be having a lot of trouble deciding on what type of substrate to use, I don't want to use a substrate that will require too much upkeep. For the plants I'm thinking maybe some nuvias, dwarf sag and some ferns, nothing that would require fancy substrate. If it can do well on regular gravel that would be nice.

I'll be definitely using some driftwood and some river rocks for decorations, as for the fish I'm not sure yet.

Thank you.

[Hardy85]

I use Turface (a bag is $20 and easily did my 55), but with it and root tabs my plants are doing good.

With that size of a tank, it might just be worth it to invest in a planted tank substrate... reason I say this is because while you are only thinking low tech planted tank for now, a co2 kit for a tank that size is cheap, same with a nice light... so you may want to start simple, but upgrade later. And if you start with a good substrate, it would save a ton of effort in a later upgrade if you ever did decide to do so.

Regular gravel $5-10 for a 10 gal tank, nice eco complete gravel would be like $18 for a bag

[Hardy85]

And for fish, I would vote a small school of dwarf cory, and maybe cardinal tetra, or a nice betta