i am wanting to do a nano planted tank for a pair of appistos. but im wandering what i need to start a planted tank to have it thrive. i want to go with a south american biotope so im wandering what are good plants that are hardy and pretty simple to keep? thank you any info is greatly appreciated.

1. Good substrate, good light, injected CO2, and a good fertilization schedule for a high tech tank. For a low tech tank, good substrate and good light are all you need. High tech tanks allow you to grow a more diverse variety of plants but they are more costly and labor-intensive to maintain than a low tech tank. Here's some sources to help you get started:
Basics to starting a Planted Tank - The Planted Tank
DIY CO2 made easy (great writeup and recipe by James on a cheap and effective CO2 system for a small tank).
http://www.hallman.org/plant/huebert.html (a nerdy article on ecology of FW plants)

2. Looks like you've got your pick of biotope choices, depending on where your apistos are from! Here's two sweet links I found, in order of awesomeness:
Biotope Aquariums
Apistogramma Dwarf Cichlids

The biotope page contains info on clearwater, whitewater, and blackwater South American biotopes, replete with plant types, and the apisto page talks all about apistos and their origins.

Hope this helps!

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

thank you very much for your response and yes it did going to start my new project today!!!

plants:

anacharis, vals.

10g some potted types and a single amazon sword.

I think those are an south american biotope but some get too big for smaller tanks like the amazon sword.

For substrate I use 1" peat moss, 1"play sand, and 1" prochoice select.

Start the tank with that and let it set a week. Then add 1 fish and not add food for a week. Add more fish the third week and start feeding 1 flake per day.

(look up beaslbob builds)

Just me and my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

Depends on the fish, and the amount of plants. If there aren't enough plants to at least lessen the impact of the new fish, then the ammonia and/or nitrite might very well claim the fish. This is assuming that apistos are as big of a waste producer as their regular-sized cichlid cousins. In addition, I can't say I completely agree with Bob's method of not feeding for extended amounts of time (3 weeks?!), because some fish come out of the pet store malnourished in my experience.

And lastly, many biotope aquariums aren't as heavily planted as the tanks Bob likes to run. For example, my 29 gallon will have two amazon swords and a smattering of moss, and that's it.

Just my $0.02 ;)

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

thanks for all your commets thus far has been helpfull i have the tank set up no fish or plants yet but going to looking today for some