Aquarium plant care help?

[bloodlucky]

K I've been keeping fish for about 10 years but I've never kept live plants before. I'm a total newbie at this and I need step by step instructions please!

Ok so I bought a 1 gallon aquarium with filtration and lighting a while ago so I can practice keeping live plants in it, then once I get the hang of it I figure I'll start using live plants in my community tank.

I paid a visit at petco today and looked at their live plant section and I noticed they sold something like CO2 tablets for live plants. Could you explain to me what this as well as how it plays a role in the whole photosynthesis deal?

Do I need to change substrates? I currently use gravel in the 1 gallon, do I need to change that?

Please explain to me EVERYTHING as well as all the materials I need. Thank you

 

[librarygirl]

Planted aquariums can be as difficult or as easy as you want it to be. What types of plants are you wanting to grow. There are a number of low-light plants that should do well with just the lights the aquarium comes with such as anubias, java fern, java moss. There are others too. Most plants will do fine with just the CO2 your fish put out and the minerals in your water; you dont necessarily need CO2.

Lighting plays a role too; the higher the light, the more nutrients the plants need.

Some plants such as swords feed from their roots so some root tabs in the substrate might be a good idea (not CO2 tabs; something like this: Freshwater Aquarium Plant Fertilizer: Aquarium Pharmaceuticals API Root Tabs Plant Fertilizer

Watch out for PetCo and PetSmart plants too; they tend to sell some plants that aren't fully aquatic. PetSmart has gotten better at labeling these but not sure about PetCo.

If you just want to start out easy, try some of the more common lowlight plants mentioned above and put them in your tank and see how they do.