What qualities should this rookie look for when buying plants?

[Kall]

I’m new to the hobby and trying to determine if I want to use live or artificial plants (or perhaps a combo of both) in my future tank. The tank will be a 72g bow front with dimensions of 48x18x23 or so. I’m hoping for a lightly planted tank that will possibly provide some cover for livebearer fry and act as “natural filters” along with dual Aquaclear 300s, and doesn’t add too much maintenance work.

From what I’ve read, good starter plants would be java fern and moss, hornwort, and various hygrophila (polysperma was one often mentioned). I’ve checked out several LFS and I’m afraid I don’t know what to look for in a “good looking” underwater plant. I have no eye for these types of things unfortunately- everything seems brown and decayed instead of green, and I have difficulty telling one plant from another. What do you look for when plant hunting? The pictures I’ve seen in various book (Baensch’s Atlas Vol I primarily) are nothing like what I am finding in the stores, and many of the plants I *am* able to recognize by sight are often named something else.

My other concerns are around lighting. The tank comes default with a single 48” strip light. The default bulb was listed as 60W, but I don’t know anything else such as what type of light it provides. I’ve read enough to learn beginners should try to start out with around 1.5 to 2.5 WPG and work from there, so I’d need 110-180 watts or so. Are there any single 48” bulbs that can provide that type of lighting? I also noticed other numbers mentioned besides just the wattage in various posts. Are those lumens or another measuring unit? Should I upgrade to the double or even triple strip light? Should a beginner even consider CF or advanced lighting considering what I am aiming for?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Hound]

Hiyas,

When I decided to plant my 50g long tank I first built a DIY hood and installed a double flourescent kitchen light into it. That provides me with 80 watts over 50g of water or 1.4 watts per gallon. That being said since my tank is only 18 inches deep or so light penetration in my tank is better than a tank that would be deeper. I have no CO2 and add a teaspoon of flourish once a week. Lighting works on a timer and is set for 10 hours per day.

The plants I have are about 10 crypts (lutea, wendtii red, and wendtii green), a java fern, about 12 stems of anacharis, a small amount of microsword, and a compacta sword. Everything is doing well in my tank and even the compacta sword has about 9 plantlets right now that I can remove and replant. I also have problems with my LFS and LPS when it comes to plants. Because of that all my plants have been purchased online from one person on ebay. I liked the first order so I kept ordering from her.

For your setup I'm really not sure what the one 48" lightstrip is right off the top of my head. Regular 48" flourescents are 40 watt bulbs. To my knowledge a triple strip 48" fixture generally uses t-8 bulbs which are 32 watt bulbs. If you are planning for plants the triple 32 watt setup should be enough to get you started with a low tech planted tank. One thing for certain is to get a timer and use good bulbs. Home depot sells some philips bulbs which work great for myself and others. Do not use cool white bulbs. The philips plant and aquarium bulb seems to work fine, but don't use 3 of them. They also have philips daylight bulbs in the 5000k (kelvin) to 6500k range. I use one plant and aquarium bulb along with one 6500k bulb. The kelvin rating deals with light spectrum and not what we see (typically speaking the lumens rating).

Hope some of this helps.