I'm from Syracuse! Anyways, some good gravels for plants are flourite (sp?) comes in red and a natural brownish color I believe, Eco-Complete black, no need to wash, and Onyx gravel greyish-black color. As far as sand goes, the only one good for plants that I know of is Onyx Sand, same color as the Onyx gravel.
Hope you will have fun with your 29G. 29G are a little more difficult to work with because of their height (as compared to a 30G). I have worked with both. Are you looking to aggressively plant your tank or have aggressive fish in the tank. You can have both but sometimes the fish will rearrange the tank for you.
Gravel - flourite is good - that is what I use. I use a mix of red and black and sea shells to bump up my KH since I use pressurized CO2. I have African Cichlids which like high PH and CO2 will lower PH so I needed a good mix. Plus the colors or red, black and white are interesting. You can do a search in the plant section to get a better idea of what to get and users opinions.
I had a backdrop (but I lost it in a move)- if you get colorful fish - go with Black - it will bring out their color more. A more permanent backdrop is paint the back side of the tank a color (ie black).
I like green cambomba (looks like an evergreen with fine needle leaves) and ludwigia gladulosa (a red/purple plant that to me looks fake but is not). Ludwigia may take more light since it is a redder plant (ask the experts on this). I also like Moneywart (easy to grow and helps keep algae down) and Coffeefolia (similiar to Anubias Nana).
As for setups - if you have bottom dwellers or cave diggers, I just rebuilt a 30G with tubing INSIDE the gravel (placed gravel over tubing) and my fish LOVE it. It is neat to see 4 infant yellow labs dart into it and come out the other side all chasing each other!! Of course this setup has a draw back - yo may never see your fish again - but that is not the case for me! Look for natural rocks from a river (boil them to get them clean for at least 10 minutes) and maybe some driftwood (either from river or retailer - do the same - boil it if from river). You can attach java fern or java moss to the driftwood.
don't do like I have and rush into this, be sure and research for exactly what you want or you'll do something wrong and never be happy. Planted tanks "can" be expensive or you can do them cheap, all depends on how much research and time you invest. First of all, decide whether to build around the plants or around the fish. Some fish are not good in planted tanks as already mentioned. If you are set on a certain fish, make sure you're not building a china closet to put a bull into. If plants are your goal, pick the type of plants and look you like and look into them. some plants need lots of light, some don't. If you are happy with java fern and anacharis, you can have simple lighting and be fine. If you want swords and other high light plants, you need lots of lighting. Over a certain watts per gallon of light, you need to add co2. Then comes the fertilization and substrate. I'm basically a beginner in plants but am happy with a 30 gallon I just set up and don't have too much money invested either. I found a cheap alternative to use for substrate from some local planted tank nuts. Wal-mart brand kitty-litter is made from 100% clay which is perfect to put as fertilizing substrate with some small gravel on top or sand. Substrates that you (or at least I) would think are good for plants aren't. I thought sand or peatmoss would be perfect but after reading, I find they really aren't very good at all. You can find lighting in many places. I bought a Jebo 24" 110 watt light for my 30 for $45 on ebay and got a co2 system from petsmart that uses the tablets. go visit the planted tank forum here, www.plantedtank.net and "the krib" website and do a lot of reading. there are also tons of other planted sites I havn't been to but I know these have a wealth of info. good luck! Kyle
