Trying my first planted tank and need some advice please!

[redgal]

Hi everyone,
I'm trying to get my first ever planted tank going and need some advice. I have lots of questions even after doing some research! I just can;t decide on anything! lol. It's a 10g and I'm planning to have some cories, rasboras and maybe a dwarf gourami. I have a nice piece of driftwood and would really like a sharp looking tank.
I'm thinking about using seachem flourite black sand as my substrate as I like the look ( good for cories I have heard too) and 2 x 10watts coralife mini compact flourescent lights. What do you think of the lighting? That would be 2wpg so low to medium right?
I was thinking of buying some seachem flourish tabs and seachem flourish for plant nutrients/fertilizer and seachem flourish excel for co2 source. Do I need all three? Do I even need co2? Co2 seems so intimidating to me, do i need to buy something to monitor the co2 level too?
Most of all , I am finding it hard to figure out the best plants for my tank ( beginners, low-moderate light and small tank) and came up with these: java moss, java fern, lace java fern, narrow leaf java fern, crypts, anubias, hornwort, amazon sword,four leaf clover, hairgrass, wendtii, ruffle sword, xmas moss, vallisneria. But, I have no idea which would look better in my tank, which I should but in the foreground, which in the background or how many i should buy! I will be ordering them online and shipping so I can't really see before I buy and it's hard to get a visual of what they will look like in my tank.
So, any help, thoughts or suggestions would be really awesome!

[fishclubgirl]

IMHO, you're on the right track!! My advice would be to keep it simple at first. Definitely flourite is an excellent idea but I'd mix it with some gravel too as it's really dusty and quite fine. Also will save you some money. If you were to go with the mosses, perhaps best not to use the Excel as it can be hard on "simpler" plants. Most of those plants would be fine without CO2 and perhaps that's in the future. As for your choice of plants, I would suggest leaving the hairgrass for the further down the road. As for fertilisers, Flourish is fine and root tabs later.2wpg is a good amount of light and not too much that you're battleing algae(hopefully) We all want to see you succeed with your planted tank. Good luck and let us know how it goes!!

[thegrandpoohbah]

Just to add to what fishclubgirl already said, 2WPG on a 10G tank is probably good. I would stick to the lower light plants like mosses, java fern and anubias though. In absolute terms, 20W of light still isn't all that much. For example, a 10W light over a 2.5G tank would be 4WPG, but you definitely wouldn't be growing high light-requiring plants very well if at all. And BTW, vallisneria is another "simple" plant that will not do well with Flourish Excel.

[OldMan]

The java fern and anubias will work well in low light like that. The crypts can grow way too big for a 10 gallon. I have some that are too big for my 40 breeder and for my 29.
The 20 watts over a 10 is well short of 2 WPG in terms of light. You might want to think of it as if it only measured 1.5 WPG. The thing to remember is that the WPG guides were developed using tanks in the 55 gallon range. For smaller tanks, you need more wattage to be equivalent and in larger tanks you need less to be equivalent.

[redgal]

Thanks so much for these awesome replies. I'm learning so much!

Okay so, I'll give the excel, flourish and tabs a miss then and just plant say two or three plants and see what happens - right?

I was of the understanding that if i mix the flourite sand with gravel it will just sink to the bottom in between the gravel and can get messy. I went back and forth bewteen grave, eco-complete, flourite and flourite sand and thought that the flourite sand would be best for cories and okay for plants, or is the sand hard for plants?

lol, too many choices and I'm still trying to narrow down my plant list to 3 types to begin with and that's taking me forver, lol! Too much fun!

[fishclubgirl]

I do a mix of sand, regular flourite and smaller grade gravel and my plants seem to like it. Is that the magic formula with plants, I don't know!! Grandpoobah, thanks for the info about Vals and Excel too!!

[thegrandpoohbah]

A really fine sand can compact down too much and restrict root growth, not to mention prevent water flow from carrying nutrients to the roots. Plus, Flourite is a pain in the you-know-what to rinse, I can't imagine Flourite sand being any more fun...

[OldMan]

If you are looking for a rich substrate, try the NPT approach and use some poor quality potting soil, the kind with no added fertilizers or boosters of any kind. Plants that do well with root feeding love the stuff about an inch thick covered with another inch of fine gravel / coarse sand to keep the potting soil in place. The semi-sandy gravel allows water to get through to the root zone. You only surface vacuum this combination, but I have had astounding success using it in my planted tanks with no artificial fertilizers added. I rely on the fish waste to provide fertility in the water column.

[sheamurai]

thanks - I'm keeping an eye on this thread as I would love to turn my 16 gal into a planted tank.
first, is upgrading the lighting....seems to be rather dear to find something to fit a small bowfront...

[MDahms]

I have used both standard black Flourite and black Flourite sand and I am not terribly fond of the sand. The sand is no fun to wash and you will probably have a cloudy tank for a day or two with silt settling on everything in the tank. I find the sand difficult to clean and would definitely go for the standard Flourite if I were to set up another planted tank.

I have not been growing plants in aquariums for very long but I have been growing plants under lights for years. Buying lights specifically made for aquariums is very expensive but there are many other options. Many orchid growers use shop light fixtures with a mix of cool white and warm white bulbs to assure a balance in the red and blue range of the light spectrum. There are horticultural fluorescent bulbs available which are more expensive than the cool or warm white bulbs and they do work well but you certainly don't need more expensive bulbs to succeed. One of the least expensive alternatives are compact daylight fluorescent bulbs. A 23W compact fluorescent is the equivalent of about 60W of incandescent light and that is plenty of light for most aquarium plants. A couple of small compact fluorescent bulbs made for lamps or ceiling fans are enough for a 10G tank.
Aquarium fixtures are expensive but they are not the only options. There are fixtures that are sold for Exo-Terra terrariums that work well for 10 gallon tanks. The fixtures hold two small compact fluorescent bulbs. 48 inch Shop light fixtures work well for larger tanks and their T8 bulbs are easy to find at any hardware store for only a few dollars each.

Mike

[redgal]

Thanks so much for all this wonderful info and advice - you are all awesome. I'm tyring to slow down a bit and plan it all out carefully based on all your suggestions but patience isn't my virtue, lol.