bre

How do you do this with a tank that is already stocked and set up? It is a 90 gallon and plants kinda seem like they would be cool. Can anyone tell me everything and what steps I would need to take to do this or can it be done with a tank that is already setup?

Bill

It certainly can be done, and it'll improve your water quality to boot Nothing special you need to do, just buy the plants and, well, plant them. Find out your wpg (watts per gallon) beforehand, so that you know what species will do well. For now, at least, I would stick with low-light plants and no co2 injection, because since you're well established co2 injection will upset things a bit by lowering pH etc. If you have between 1 and 2 wpg (or slightly less than 1wpg even - see my tank in my sig) that should be fine. Keep the lights on for about 12 hours a day and maybe add some sort of basic fertiliser to keep the plants happy. I'd recommend java fern, anubias and java moss to start with - very easy low-light plants. A low-light tank can look amazing, but if you want more variety such as hairgrass, glosso, reddish plants etc. you could gradually go the co2 route. This is expensive and hard work, which is why low-light tanks are the best really

jsalemi

A good starting point is this thread right here: General Guide to Low-Light Planted Tanks

neverendingninja

I just want to point out that the pH drop caused by co2 injection is not a problem. Its not the pH swing that causes problem, but other parameters that are associated with pH. Typically, when people see a wildly low pH and think it killed there fish, its actually because they injected too much co2. In short, don't be scared of going the co2 route. A lot of people out there can walk you through step by step and you'll have thriving plants, which normally means thriving fish, in no time