For Plant Care....
1a. You will need a source of Co2. if your tank is under 60L you can use DIY co2 (
SEE HERE) but anything larger (i think anything bigger than 40L) should have pressurised Co2. This can be delivered from something like a Co2 fire Extinguisher. However you will need equipment like an internal or external co2 diffuser, a Co2 drop checker and co2 airline, also non return valves are useful and so are timers that you plug in to sockets so you can set when you want lights and co2 to come on. For pessurisedco2 preferably co2 on 1 hour before lights on and off 1 hour before lights off. This will enable plants to grow stronger and have more leaves as they will bush out and become less 'leggy'
1b. Alternatively you could go for something like liquid carbon (easycarbo or seachem excel), this is good for small tanks and it also contains anti algae properties. (but do not use this solely for combating or preventing algae, if you have algae you should address why it is there rather than trying to cover it with algae eating fish etc) Liquid carbon is cheaper than Pressurised in the short term but it is not very good on large tanks. Do not overdose on Liquid carbon as it is not good for fish.
Please Note, some plants such as vallis do not do too well under liquid carbon, thats not to say they wont grow but they dont like this way of introducing carbon into the aquarium.
For a more in depth read of co2 read Aarons thread on uKaps.
HERE
2a. For fertilisers you again have two choices. For a newbie like yourself i recommend an all in one fertiliser like Tropica Plant Nutrition+ (or TPN+ for short). This product is dosed directly into the water coloumn (much like liquid carbon) and allows the plants to take nutrients out of the water. However some plants like cryptocorynes and Echinodorus' are heavy root feeders and need a good
substrate. (see down the page) For dosing ferts a pipette or syringe is very handy.
2b. Another method is making your own ferts. This is good if you have multiple tanks or very very large tanks as it works out cheaper in the long run. To do this you buy the correct fertiliser powders from a reputable seller like Aquaessentials or fluidsensor online and mix up your own ferts. with macro and micro soloutions. This is more complex and will require a lot more reading up and understanding. For more reading on EI (estimative Index) dosing of ferts see clives topic.
HERE
3. Substrates are very useful for plants as they allow the roots to grow strong and very healthy and very large. You can buy nutritional substrates to help plants. However, examine what the substrates contain. N,P,K is what you want. (Nitrogen (N) Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K). ) For more reading see
HERE despite it being for non aquatic plants the principles remain the same.
3a. Some substrates need 'capping' (E.g JBL aquabasis, Tropica substrate) To do this you put a layer on the bottom of the tank and then cover it with a small layer of plain gravel or sand. This means that the plants have access to good nutrition and you have the look of a nice gravel on top. Most plant nutritional substrates cloud when you touch them so its best to plant and then leave it and just prune carefully. (to read up on pruning try
HERE) However by capping them you should need to desturb the nutritional substrate when performing tank maintenance etc.
3b. Other substrates do not need capping like ADA Amazonia and Oliver Knotts Nature Soil but these are normally more expensive. Do be careful as some substrates leach things (ammonia etc) when first put into the water so plenty of water changes are recommended until these levels are massively reduced. Do this before you add livestock.
4. Lighting needs to be reasonably good, oon smaller tanks you will have a higher watts per gallon (WPG) than on bigger tanks, as you will need a lot of lighting to achive 2 WPG on a 400L tank whereas you will need very little to achive this on a 20L tank. However excess lighting is not good and can contribute towars algae outbreaks.
see
HERE for good info.
Do not forget, good filtration is a must. Aim for at least 10x turnover.
I hope i have roughly covered the basics. You will then need to read into good flow rates around the tank to distribute co2 and ferts.
Hope this helps.
