I have been a fan of Tropica since soone after I started with live plants in late 01 or early 02. I began using their fertilizer back then and as the name and formulations changed over the years I stuck with them. I started with MasterGrow and today I use both Premium and Specialized. Back then Tropica and the USDA had a fight over their plants being allowed in the country. Our rules require that live plants coming in must be bare root. Tropica grew in pots and thus were banned. Ultimately this changed. But I think it was due to Tropica moving to cloning as their main method of propagation.
There are plenty of photos on the site, but the plant list has always used hand drawings. They are excellent and the infor re the plants etc. on that site are really a good asset for most plant keepers. The one drawback is they seem to concentrate on the plants they sell. So the site is not a master list of everything out there. But there is still a ton of great info there. It is really great for moving one from being a beginner all the way to having the more exotic varieties and using pressurized CO2 and high lighting levels.
I too never got into plants sites. While I have kept live plants in as many as 13 tanks at one time, I kept them for their benefits for the fish. Not all tanks can be planted. It may not be practical in terms of the fish or the parameters in a given tank. But when an established, live planted substrate can be used in a tank, it is the best filtration one can have. Barring this, the next best filtration, imo, is a Hamburg Mattenfilter. I do both kinds. Because most of y tanks are now dedicated to spawning and growing out a few species of plecos, these tanks are not planted and do not use tank lights except during time I work in those tanks. It saves on electricity and I do not get algae in such tanks either.
Finally, I will do live plants in pots or attached to rocks and/or wood as well.
75 gal. nothing is planted in the sand.
25 gal.