the more red in a plant the higher the light, might need CO2, and a good substrate.
for my words of wisdom, if you want a low tech tank (wish i knew this in the beginning) do a dirt substrate with a small black gravel as a cap. use organic soil.. i don't think it matters which brand, but i've used miracle grow organic potting soil. now when you have soil you wont ever IMO need to worry about adding ferts
the plants will root fantastic, but the only down side is that once you have planted and the plants have rooted.. don't move them because you then have soil everywhere.. which isn't nice.
for lighting.. you'll need to read up on watts per gallon.. what type of lighting etc etc.. i use energy efficient florescent lighting and the plants grow great.. they have a 13W intake, but a 60W output.. something like that ha.
go with for ground covering dwarf hair grass.. looks very nice.. and stick to amazon sword, different types of vallisneria, then water wisteria, anubius, java fern, green cabomba. these plants grow great and are great for beginners and when you know what you are doing you still have room to add more plants
its more, spend less on cheap plants in the beginning and then later on when they are flourishing you can go more for the intermediate plants etc.
you'll also want to aquascape it, first have you substrate in, then add the wood.. take a step back.. really know what you want before adding plants and fill her up... best to plant the crap out of it.. then you'll need to let it cycle.. fishless cycle.. also you'll need to watch the stats of the water for around a month before adding in fish after you cycle.. don't want the soil to do something and boom you lose your fish...
when i did dirt on my 40 gallon i waited around a week before adding my fish back in.. but i already had cycled material.. sooo it was just the water.. then i needed to do water changes everyday for a week.. then back to the weekly water changes... but when you get into a heavily planted tank you can do around monthly large water changed and boom your done.. less maintenance because of all the plants you have.
so really take your time and plan, plan, plan.. you'll thank yourself later on.
