Newly planted 20 gallon high

[olearyjames]

Just want some advice on my 20 gallon high tank.  I set it up last monday so it's only 3 days old.  I had a diy Co2 on it but realized I may need more plants before I need anything like that.  Besides, I got some snot like slime that appeared on the airstone that I was using, so I removed the Co2 for now. 

I also had a "Utah Ice" rock in there.  But when I did a little more research and found out that it is a type of gypsum and can dissolve in my tank I removed it and put some old pebbles I had from a previous set up. 

I've got an eclipse hood with an established bio-wheel and two 15w eclipse bulbs.

Now I'm hoping to get a fully planted aquarium going and want to add more plants, I picked up the ones you see in the pic below at the Emerald Plaza Petsmart.  But I'd like to get more variety.

olearyjames

[attachment deleted by admin]

[fischkopp]

Looks like a good start to me!

Don't worry about adding CO2, too much won't cause any trouble for plants, only for fish. The slime that you  saw on the air stone for CO2 diffusion is a harmless bacteria colony. This is a common by-product of DIY CO2 injection, since it is based on bacteria activity. These slimy bacteria will eventual become a food source in an established aquarium.

The rock is not necessarily a bad thing since most plants do need calcium to grow optimal - and the water in town doesn't contain much. I wouldn't worry too much about the rock if you like it.

For the beginning I would recommend to stick to plants that have medium light demands. Sword, crypts, fern, moss for example.

Welcome to the green side!

[charlie]

Welcome to OVAS & the green side , there is lots to read on planted tanks here , please do check out the old post in this planted forum from time to time.

CO2 is not a absolute necessity for your tank right now, mainly because of your lighting & not your plant mass, you stated you have X watts of light, this puts you at 30 watts on that 20 gallon tank which works out to 1.5 watts per gallon ( WPG), that light threshold leaves you with a very limited selection of plants, apart from negating the requirement of  CO2 which really becomes a must have when you exceed the 2.5 WPG.
Looking at your tank,it would appear that at least one type of plant is not true aquatic, the tall grassy one close to the heater & filter pick up with the white stripe, as such it most likely will not do very well in time.Check out the different info in the link below.
http://ovas.ca/index.php?topic=35307.0

[olearyjames]

Thanks for the advice!  Yeah I thought that plant might be a non aquatic, noticed something similar in the "Encyclopedia of Aquarium Plants" by Peter Hiscock. Hope it will last a while longer. Either way I'd like to get a lot more plants in there!