When I restarted in the hobby last year I had read somewhere about low maintenance planted tanks.
Long story short you plant the tank heavily, stock lightly, use snails (Malaysian trumpet snails) and loaches to turn up the sand substrate don't vacuum as you would gravel. Now after researching I found that is not necessarily good practice, but I have also learned what parts of this work to lower maintenance.
I rarely vacuum, most with planted tanks don't.
I plant as heavy as I can (haven't got to heavily planted yet) because plants reduce ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates.
I try to stock lightly, currently housing some fish from my sons small tank that developed a leak.
I use pond and ramshorn snails, along with assassin snails to control their population.
In my tank with no assassins I have nerite (don't breed in freshwater) and mystery snails with red cherry shrimp and endlers.
The article said you didn't have to change water every week, I have done weekly water changes anyway.
I recently started using NilocG DIY pps-pro liquid fertilizer, but for almost a year I used neither root tabs or liquid. Liquid ferts will help tremendously, the growth has been unreal in the week I've been using them. But for a year I had fairly healthy plants with nothing.
I hope this shows you that everyone's story/tanks are different, I don't recommend some of the things that worked for me in last year but they worked. So just try plants, research, ask question and see what works for you it's not rocket science, but we're here to help when it gets more complicated (still learning myself) .
