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Big Ol' Question from a Reassured Newbie



Hi all,
Well, first of all I'd like to say thanks for the very helpful responses 
received about my last query about koi angels. The only other list i've ever 
subscribed to (one about robotics) was not nearly as direct - this is great 
so far!

So, on to my main question: I am setting up a 20 (english)/25(American) 
gallon planted tank (Note I said planted tank and not plant tank. It has to 
have fish in it as well.) It is 18" tall/ 12" deep/ 24" long. Thus far, using 
info gained from thekrib.com and actwin.com, plus various fish books, I have 
added the following: 

1/2 inch of sharp red sand (sharp as in contains pieces of sharp gravel)
1/2 inch of garden soil, very rich, nearly black in colour, having had most 
large stones, worms etc. removed from it (Except a slug which emerged only 
when the tank was being filled! (see below)) 
1 1/2" of rounded aged aquarium gravel, mostly 5 - 8mm in diameter.

I filled the tank with this lot, then thought "Hmm my garden is pretty lush. 
Maybe there's too much algae food in the soil! Erk!" So, I put 6 inches of 
dechlorinated water in the tank,  hoping that any nitrates/NPK fertilisers 
would leach out from the soil into it. I could then drain this water and thus 
remove these contaminants.

So, you now have all the info on my current tank. In this tank I plan to 
plant:

-Vallisneria spp at the back
-Echinodorus quadricostatus at the front to provide a "lawn"
-Another Echinodorus species (bleheri?) somewhere about the middle
-A large red leaved feature plant , possibly Alternanthera sessilis
-Some Hydrocotyle leucopetala or Green Cabomba at the sides/back to provide 
height.

As for lighting, I plan to have 3 15" fluorescent tubes (no idea of wattage. 
30 watts sound about right? or too high for small tubes? the only one I have 
is ::sealed:: inside a fitting at present and the writing is turned away from 
the glass!)

The budget won't run to a CO2 tank at present but I can at least use a yeast 
bottle. I plan to use 2 '1ft tank size' internal power filters in a sump, 
piping the water back to the aquarium to minimise the amount of equipment 
visible (I have a 6 gall tank to use a sump so I can fit the heater in there 
too.), therefore I can use some sort of reactor to dissolve the gas into the 
water.

No idea of my water hardness at present, but the water comes out of the tap 
at pH ~7.1 and is 'Medium hard' compared to other water I have drunk/washed 
in about the country.

The fish I have at present are: a pair of Blue gouramies, a Gold gourami and 
two (probably not a pair) Speckled Corydoras cats. (Got a fish book open in 
front of me ... my but those Diamond Tetras are cute....Ahem.) I would also 
like to add a Ram cichlid pair (Not even going to try for the latin name :) 
and a shoal of Cardinal tetras or Tiger barbs.

The tank's filters have cycled already, and are full to busting with bacteria 
(Recycled them from my previous tanks.)

So, my main questions are:
1. Will this set-up, in its present form, cause me any great problems? Am I 
doing anything REALLY wrong?
2. Will this set-up, with proper care, produce good plant growth? (Or, the 6 
million dollar question!!)

Now I bet at this point some of the more seasoned aquarists are either 
chuckling quietly to themselves or saying "Ye gods has this man read NONE of 
the material out there on planted tanks?". Well, I have read quite 
extensively (free school period = me sat at a net terminal.), and have come 
to the conclusion that this set-up should do quite well. But, I have always 
found it best when making something from instructions on the Net to check 
with some actual human beings before putting in the batteries/plugging it 
in/turning on the gas/putting 20 gallons of water on top of it!
Yours gratefully,
Matt.