brackish light help/plants

[Homer8]

i dont know too much about planted tanks in general but i know the main concept. you need CO2 ferts and light. I have a 29 gallon brackish tank(really a 22 gallon the way i have it setup) that is currently 1.008 but im going to bring it down to 1.005 over the next 2 weeks. the current inhabitants are 1 mudskipper, 2 nerite snails, 3 amano shrimp (will probably be food for puffer), and by thursday of next week there will be a fig 8 puffer. i have 1 Windelov Java Fern in there now that i put in a few days ago and seems to be doing ok and im going to put in the java moss i have and i hope to put more plants in.

here is the question/s. What plants should i get(preferably plants that can be bought at petco because its the only pet store within 80 miles of me)?
i have a hood that has a 18watt T8 fluorescent bulb, should i upgrade and if so what should i get?
will increased lighting affect the mudskipper? i dont want him to get burned
if i want to carpet the tank what can i get other then microsword?

if you can help me with anything else that would be great. here is a picture incase you havent seen the others i have posted. the java fern is not in the pictures

 

[FastFly67]

www.plantgeek.com has an entire section for brackish plants
once you know what you want, check aquabid for those plants. two sellers on there who are excellent are coryloachfreak and mikeswetpets. I'm not sure how the classifieds are around here but it's possible you can get some trimmings that will work for relatively cheap.
more than likely your bulb is not a 'sunlight' bulb if it's the one that came with the hood. head to your walmart and look for one that says 'sunlight bulb' and has 6700k rating on it. that's the spectrum plants need.
hope that helps

 

[Homer8]

so i did some research on the light and its made by GE and here are the specs

watts 18w T8 size fluorescent 950 lumens CCT(color temp) 10,000k


i dont know what these specs mean but are they good for growing plants in a brackish tank and thanks for the info and plantgeeks.com website it was very helpful