Noobie to plants looking for advise...

**blacksnow** · 02-26-2009, 02:33 AM

I have an extra 10 gallon tank I'm not using...

I'd like to set it up with a bunch of plants.

Can someone recommend some different plants, as well as the best substrate to use for growing the plants.

Heck if you can recommend a few small fish to go in there the be cool too ;)

**korith** · 02-26-2009, 02:41 AM

Are you going to stay with the stock lighting?
Figure out how many total watts you will have, to get an idea of how many watts per gallon you are at. That will help determine what sorts of plants will work in your tank. http://plantgeek.net/plantguide.php is a great website, you can list plants by lighting requirements. Should give you a ton of ideas.

For the substrate, eco complete, and fluorite work well for planted tanks. You can even use gravel for a planted tank if you really want to, just need to add fertilizer tablets to help the plants. Sand may be ok as well, though some plants don't thrive in it, because it can restrict the growth of roots.

**Wild Turkey** · 02-26-2009, 02:49 AM

Figure out what lighting you want/can afford first and then go from there.
The more light you have the more likely you will end up with co2 injection and fert dosing a lot. So if you want low maintenance, shoot for pretty low light and go to plantgeek.net and check out some low light plants.

Eco-complete is a popular plant substrate that can be attained easily. I use it in pretty much all my tanks and i love it.

**troy** · 02-26-2009, 03:16 AM

I personally have a 'low tech' planted 10g tank. For lighting I have two 10watt fluorescent bulbs I bought from walmart, gravel as the substrate, and to date I've added no ferts at all. In this setup I have amazon swords, java moss, hornwort, java fern, duckweed, java fern, cryptocorne wendetii, anacharis, aponogeton, and pogostemon gayi. Most of these plants have been in the tank for 6 months so it's not like i just setup the tank.