Hey Pat I have some ideas for your tank, all my plants are potted in dirt I use a recipe from williamtrickers they are the oldest aquatic plant grower in the United States, I will look for their recipe or they may even have it at their website, plant choices you could go with swords which are easy to grow and maybe some crypts, don't know if you have a local that grows plants but there is a place on aquabid an I believe they are in Florida they have very nice plants at reasonable prices, they go by the seller 90125, fertilizer you can target feed with api root tabs or flourish tabs,liquid feed you can use seachem flourish advance, fish on that size tank I would go with dwarf cichlids, rams,apistos,any thing that gets bigger than that is going to eat your tetras for lunch,lighting is generally recommend at 2 watts per gallon and a lot of people are using the new led lights, fluval is a good one I also put manzanita wood in my tanks and you may even consider peat filtering, and don't forget a good filter, if I think of anything else I will post. Jeanne