[Calmia22]

I will be getting plants in 1 month after what seems like forever in setting up my first planted tank. (YAY!) Anyways, I am somewhat clueless on what works with what setup.

Here are my specs:
A regular 55 gallon
Aquaclear 110 and Eheim Pro II canister
Substrate is dirt, capped with flourite
Paintball co2
A 3 bulb T5 HO light fixture with moonlight leds (if that matters) Oh, and bulbs are all 6500k
I plan to dose with Flourish, since it is the only fert that is readily available in my area.

I don't know if this matters but..
I will be housing angels in this tank as the main fish, as well as cories, and a pair of bolivian rams.

What I want in plants:
Plants that are deep greens. I dont like most plants that have a natural yellow-ness of lighter green to them, and I do want plants with reds, but I plan to get those later after my initial plants have gotten a good start.

I want a main background plant that can go across the back of the tank and be somewhat dense, and reach the waters surface.
Then medium to low in height from the back to the front of the tank.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I am very experienced with the fish, but plants are very new to me lol.

 

[koldsoup]

What I find really fun is going through the SnS and looking at the different plants that the members are selling and then see if they would look good in my tank. There are members that sell packages so if you see a package that you like, you're all set.

Your setup looks like it's gonna be really high light. I'm guessing each of the bulbs are 54 watts? You may need to dose a lot of ferts if you don't want an algae outbreak.

 

[Kathyy]

I think you probably would like the way just one bulb looks rather than all three. Bright light makes leaves look yellower just because the strong light shines through them more.

Looking at my tank I see Fissidens, Anubias nana, narrow leaf Java fern and Marsilea are darker green, consider using them. Staurogyne repens, hairgrass, wisteria and pennywort are more yellow green, you might not care for these plants. The others are in the middle somewhere. Not sure about Fissidens but the other dark green plants I have can tolerate low light better than the lighter green plants.

 

[JasonG75]

For a 55 with Angels I would recommend Italian Vals (Background) you will have to train them in the beginning and keep the runners under control for a while.

Also for a nice floater/Lilly I would go with the Banana plant or Lotus. For smaller plants look into the Crypt parva. Is there any WOOD in the tank?

 

[Coltonorr]

I would loose the HOB filter and just use a pump to move water.
With a HOB filter you always run the risk of loosing CO2 with water turbulence.