Hi DaniFishGirl84,
Low Tech is a good starting point for getting into planted aquariums, however a gravel substrate with poor lighting, little nutrient or any form of CO2 supplementation is what I would call "No Tech". Basically no plants are going to do well under these conditions except algae.
Better to substitute the gravel for something like Eco Complete Planted Substrate (topped with gravel if you like) but don't make it deeper than about one or two inches as it is likely to become severely anaerobic.
Lighting is also important, you need to have the right intensity, spectrum and length of exposure. Personally I use Aqua One PlantGlo LED lighting. The plants seem to like it and its cheap to run. I have the lights on a siesta lighting schedule (5 hours on, 4 hours off, followed by 5 hours on again). The reason for this is simple, after about 4-5 hours the plants will have exhausted all of the available CO2 in the water column and stopped photosynthesizing. By turning the lights off for about 4 hours the CO2 levels will recover. From the plants point of view there is no point having the lights on if there is no CO2 in the water. To help with photosynthesis I also use a daily dose of EasyCarbo (a cheaper version of Flourish Excel both of which contain Glutaraldehyde). This seems to work well for me and has the added benefit of limiting algal growth.
As for the plants I suggest that if you purchase slow growing like Anubias or Java fern etc buy it attached to drift wood or similar. That way you can remove it from the tank for cleaning (dipping in 1 part bleach to 20 water solution to kill algae, just ensure you rinse well before returning to the tank). It's also important to include some fast growing bunch plants like Wisteria to use up available nutrients in the water column before the algae does. Maintaining bunch plants is easy, you just trim them and replant the pruning s.
Looking forward to some pictures of your newly planted tank.
