Starting a nano tank

Question
QUESTION: HEllo
i hope you can help me. I am New to planted aquariums, so i thought that a nano tank would be a great place to start. The only Problem is that i know not a lot about planted tanks. I don't know whether the lighting would be ok for an all inclusive tank ie the lighting that come with the tank, and there are many other things that i am not familiar with. I have tried to find info on the internet but failed to find antthing basic. i know it is probably a lot to ask but could you give me a low down on starting a nano tank.

thanks for your time
ANSWER: Hey  ignous,

I was just made aware that you aksed this question, but had not been notified of your question until i was going to answer another one so i apologize for my timely delay.

But to answer your question first off welcome to the planted side of the hobby, if' you've never dont planted tanks then your going head first with a nano. Honestly in my experience i would not start with a nano, nano's require alot more maintanance because of there small volume they require the smallest of all hardware which somtimes is more expensive then the regular sized stuff. There is ALOT less margin of error you can have... because of less volume of water one mistake could be the end of your tank. Nana's require about 5wpg (watts per gallon) instead of the normal 2.7 (for mid light) on a normal aquarium over 20 gallons.

To be an expert in this field i would highly suggest you maybe start out with a 33 gallon aquarium, this will give you time to learn about all hardware needed, about water chemistry, about plants in general etc etc.

But because you asked the nano question i'll let you know.
Basically your going to be doing a planted nano tank, you probably will require a tank about 7 gallons in size..Your going to need about 35 watts of flourescent lighting 6700K. Your going to need a laterite for under your substrate and then a natural substrate such as flora base made by red sea, eco- complete, or flourish. Your going to need to read into EI (estimated index) for dosing dry fertilizers to keep your algae at bay, and your going to have to rig up a DIY(do it yourself) co2 fixture, your going to have to figure out what kind of design you want to do and find plants that will fit your lighting requirements...

I can keep going if you want lol... :)

Planted tanks are honestly a real pain to learn, they are fun though at the same time, i think your going to fast in jumping into this though. I Highly suggest you buy a 33 gallon and start with that.. learn about the different types of lighting, learn about co2 and all that.

Go to www.fishforums.net and register and go to the planted tank section, read read and read some more. I'v read for hundreds and hundreds maybe thousands of hours and i still got alot to learn.

Pickup a book on your first aquarium and go from there.
I will always be here to help.. does that give you a little more insight on the planted tank world :)

Hopfully i helped a bit if you got more questions ask away.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Right thanks for that. i thought that the nano would be a good small tank to ease me into the planted world. But obviously i was wrong.

so for a 33 gallon would i need the same kind of equiptment as you suggested for the nano? i am already a member of fishforums (colonel mustard)so ill read about planted tanks.

the advice is well apreciated
thanks again

Answer
Yea If your really gung ho (which i'm sure you are) and you want to dive right into a planted tank and save money now then spending more in the future get the following:

-33 gallon tank
-around 85watts of lighting (cora life has good fixtures) 6700k (the 6700k is the planted tank special lighting)
-special substrate for plants (flora base, flourite, or eco-complete)
-co2 (or diy co2 yo ucan figure this out on the forums)
-figure out what type of plants to start with (i'd start with java moss and a java fern)
-fertilizers... start with some trace fertz now (then when you read about EI you can figure out the other stuff you need)

Good to start with that i guess :)
read read read... i suggest highly you figure out what you want before you buy everything