starting a planted aquarium

Question
I really want to start a planted aquarium.  Right now my largest tank is 29 gal. It is currently stocked with a male beta, 2 pregnant female guppies, 2 female red glow danios, 1 male yellow glow danio, 1 algea eater and 2 ghost shrimp.

I have a 10 gal tank with 2 sharks and a pleco in it.

I also have another 10 gal tank (empty), and 2-1 gallon tanks (also empty)(one tank is a hex shape). I am planning on putting the baby guppies in the empty 10 gal tank-after they are born.

But so far don't have any plans for the 2 1 gal tanks.

I really want to get away from the plastic/fake decorations. I don't really like the way they look. I would love to have live plants.

What do you recommend? What are the steps required to put live plants in a tank? Are certain plants better for different sized tanks? Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

Answer
Well first off welcome to the planted side of the hobby, it's pretty exciting and it takes alot of reading and knowledge. First off i'd recommend joining a forum www.fishforums.net is the one i'm on, it's awesome for reading up on what others do and getting more info.

Well first what i'd suggest is figuring out what size tank you want... (bigger the tank less the maintanance) so if i were you and you really want to get into planted aquariums i'd start with your biggest tank or... ideally a 55 gallon.

What you want to do is figure out what type of planted tank do you want.. .this will make you aware of what type of equiptment you want.

Because your starting out i'd suggest just a low light low tech tank for now, you can start with starter plants and then go from there.

If you change tanks most of the time you gotta change your hardware and that means big $$$

But here is what i suggest you get if you really want to get into this hobby.

-Tank bigger then 30 gallons
-substrate made for plants (Flourite, redsea flora base, eco complete) these substrates will have beneficial nutrients for your plants
- a proper light containing around 6700K lighting spectrum... and about 2.4wpg (watts per gallon) IE: if you have a 55 gallon aquarium you'll want about 130 watts of lighting at 6700K spectrum
- proper filter such as a canister.. fluval , eheim
-plants.. probably to start, java fern and java moss, some rotala, swords
-co2 (diy would be best to start)

what i'd suggest is reading about planted tanks first off that forum is your best bet. I'm pointing you in the right direction but you have lots ot learn my friend :)

Good luck