new to planted tanks

[richard 93]

hi all new to the forum and new to keeping plants...so new i dont have any yet .at the moment im closing down my big fish set up .still have a few fish to move on but the idear is to turn the tank over to a planted small fish setup.
i want to try this in a very low tec way and i have never had any plants in my tank's in the years i have been keeping fish so this will be a new learnig curve for me and way out of my usal know how.
first of for all i will not be using co2 so the sub that will go in the tank will need to be able to do a good job in keeping the plant healthy .i have heard that the stuff you can get from garden centers is ok to use but have know idear what its called or wer to start (lol told ya i have no idear )
any thourts on the sub? i have a big footprint to fill so the cheaper the sub the better
thanks all
richard

 

[Ryans-planted-tank]

hey iv just planted my tank and found loads of info in a article on this site have a look at that, helped me loads! good luck

 

[richard 93]

thanks daisy wil do

 

[Mr. Limpet]

I'm working on my second planted tank and a good reference site is http://www.plantgeek.net/

 

[BigJim]

A low-light planted tank can be done rather cheaply, but still look nice. I have four low to medium-light tanks:

29g
- Two 18W daylight spectrum CFLs
- Play sand substrate ($3 for 50lb at Home Depot)
- Anacharis, anubias, java fern

40B
- Two 40W daylight spectrum T12 (No reflectors, so med-low lighting)
- Coal slag blasting compound substrate ($8 for 50lb at Menards)
- Java fern, jungle vals, amazon sword, water sprite, najas grass

20L
- Two 18W CFLs, two 18W T5s
- Quickrete Medium Sand substrate ($3 for 50lb at Home Depot)
- Water sprite, java moss, anacharis

A low-tech planted tank doesn't really require fancy substrate. You can add root tabs if needed. All my bulbs except the T5s came from the hardware store or the grocery store. I dosed Flourish once a week with good results. I recently started the PPS Pro regimen on a high-light tank and I've been dosing those ferts a couple times a week at half to one-quarter strength in my lower light tanks.