Help starting a planted tank.

I want to turn my 75 into a planted tank and dont know where to start. Much advice needed. Not looking to spend much $'s. So whats a good cheap substrait. What are some easy cheap plants to grow. Want to do mostly low light easy stuff. Whats are good ferts and how to use? Thanks for the help.

WALSTAAAAAAAAD!!!

Get some of that Miracle Grow Organic Potting Mix, that stuff is pretty cheap. Lamental Jester did a great topic about how he started his 75 gallon tank, and his tank looks frickin' awesome!
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As for Mineralizing Soil, you can go this route:
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And for red clay (refer to Lamental Jesters topic on how he used his), I can hook you up with that stuff (I have a bunch left over).

What does the clay do? Also all I for light is led and I have is a t5 shop light will it work all right for plants and what are the best bulbs for plant growth,3k 5k ,10k....?

Red Clay is a good source of iron, and it slowly releases it into the water... making it a great way to constantly fertilize your plants for a looooooong time. If I remember correctly, iron helps keep red plants, retain their red coloration (well, for MOST red plants) hehehe...

I've been told that plants will grow under lights that are around 6,500k to 10,000k..... which is odd, because the "grow lights" are rated around 3,000k... I must be missing something here lol.

I'm sure someone else can fill you in with the light portion.

Lamental Jester and I are both using LED lights with a combination of fluorescent lights, in our 15 gallon tanks, and our plants seem to be doing well. I'm still new with the whole LED lighting thing, so I'm basically just going through trial and error as of now.

LEDs alone probably wont be enough for a heavily planted 75 (walstads are meant to be heavily planted). I use T5HO's for mine and they work great. JimA was selling a T5HO fixture that I use for $50, really good deal: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Plants can grow in almost any light, but I've been led to believe that 5000k-6500k is ideal, someone correct me if I'm wrong on that. My bulbs range from the 5000k up to 18000k.

As for easy plants to grow. I find that a lot of the hydros are easy to grow: Hygrophila Corymbosa (Green Temple), Hydrophila Polysperma 'Rosanervig' (Sunset Hydro), Hydrophila Angustifolia (Willow Hydro), Hygrophila Difformis (Water Wisteria)

Easy Plants I have had good luck with:

Elodea (grows fast, I have to trim mine at least once a week)
Cabomba(the common kind not sure the full name)
Wisteria (grows well, but can look ratty)
Anubias (dont even need substrate, it feeds through the water, can be attached to driftwood, rocks)
Amazon Sword (gets big, so plan accordingly)
Java Moss (slow grower but hard to kill)
Java Fern ( can also attach to rocks, driftwood, etc.)
Water lettuce (floating plant)
Frogbit (floating plant)

Everything that I have read about the light spectrum says about 5500k-10000k will be suitable for plant growth.

None of the plants above require a ton of light by the way

Substrate:
Since you are planting a 75 gallon and dont want to spend much money, it would probably be wise for you to use dirt as suggested above and then maybe cap it off with whatever cheapo gravel or sand or whatever that you can find.

Ferts:
Seachem Comprehensive (dose once a week, I think 1 capful=60 gallons)
Seachem or API root tabs. Stick em in the substrate once every few months, (nothing too fancy to do here)

Filter:
Activated Carbon is supposed to soak up a lot of the trace elements in the water, plants use these elements. Pokesephiroth actually brought this to my attention. So its probably a good idea to remove this type of thing from your filter.

That is pretty much it (in a nutshell) for an easy cheap planted aquarium.

I definitely recommend mineralized soil. It's cheap, but time consuming to prepare. Poke's visual guide is quite handy, I like that. In my experience the mineralizing process reduces the starting volume of soil by about 50%, just remember that when you're figuring how much soil you'll need and what container you'll soak/rinse it in. Also, on my current round I'll be sieving the soil after the first drying cycle to remove wood particles that didn't float which are holding water and slowing the process. My 10g has 52w of 6500k CFL over it and DIY co2, looking great. Everything I stick in it grows like mad.

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Nyawww thanks anderson_p_r, and jrmakawoody

Some of the info I passed onto you (jrmakawoody) came from LamentalJester, so he should get the credit hehe. As for setting up a planted tank, I'm sloooowly but surely converting my 36 gallon bowfront tank from plastic plants to real plants. The dirted tank path (Walstad, El Natural, Mineralized Top Soil) is the way to go, I'd say.

Has the most prep-time, but has the least maintenance out of all the other type of aquariums with real plants.

Here is a link to my topic, and has step-by-step pictures of how I started, and there should be some recent pictures of how the tank looks like as well.
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Here is another great source of info, Lamental Jester's topic, which also covers some step-by-step stuffs on how to start up, along with pictures of his tank (which is awesome).
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