Planting in a New Tank

[ErinV]

Morning from rainy Ontario. 

Question about planting in a new set up. I have only been doing live plants for about a year. WHY did I wait so long!!! Anyway, back to question. When I started with plants I already had a very well established tank with lots of fish, bacteria, snails ect...

Now I am wanting to season my new tanks with plants from the get go. I have seen videos where people put in substrate, few inches of water, decor and than 🪴. They play around and make it look pretty and than at the rest of their water. Is would make set up much easier as I am sort amd arms just barely reach the bottom of the tank as is, but is it the correct way?

Thoughts, comments and suggestions greatly appreciated! 🙂

[eatyourpeas]

I have found cutting a paper the size of the tank footprint and doing layout there first helps with figuring out where to put plants.

One mistake I made when I started was to forget plants grow and I ended up having to reconfigure a little because some were in the wrong spot.

I started with Walstad tanks but decided I needed the flexibility to move plants around, so switched to sand and that made it much easier. Also, I use a lot of Epiphytes which can help the tank look more mature due to adding planted height using the hardscape.

[lefty o]

on a fresh start up, that is the easy way to plant. add substrate, a few inches of water, add plants, then gently fill up the tank.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Use substrate, filter media or plants from your existing tank to jump start the cycle and those plants already have adjusted to your water. Put root tabs under the substrate to boost up the rooting of the new plants. 
I agree with drawing up a plan. The other thing you can do is take a box roughly the same size as your tank and use it as a “dojo” to lay out your hardscape. 
In plant selection I try to use a different kinds of plants- stems, rooted/crown plants like swords, and rhizome such as anubias, bolbitis and buce. They grow at different rates and help with stabilizing the tank. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

And crypts use lots of crypts! A pot of crypts will get you 4+ plants. Check YouTube on how to break them up it’s intimidating at first but after the first time it’s super easy and rewarding as you can really get a lot of plants out of it and they’re beautiful. Root tabs are the key to crypt propagation!