It's kind of obvious that to set up a planted aquarium, you need an aquarium. Whether the tank is brand new out of the box,second hand, or has been in your basement corner harbouring dust and home to various critters, you need to carefully inspect for leaks,(see How?-Instructions), and clean it.DO NOT USE SOAPS!!! An acrylic or glass aquarium will do, I guess anything is, as long as it's intended for keeping fish.
Canopy With Adequate Lighting
By adequate lighting, i mean about 2-4watts of flourecent lighting per gallon. This is my 20 gallon settup, and i have 2, 24inch, 20watt bulbs. I don't buy my flourecents from fish dealers, i find them overpriced. Instead, I buy lights from Hardware stores that are labled as "aquarium bulb" or "plant growth bulb". Some good bulbs are:VitaLite, Pennplax Ultra-Trilux, Triton,GE Chroma 50, Phillips Ultralume 5000, and Phillips Daylight.Avoid "cool white" bulbs as they seem to do a better job at growing algae gardens.
If you have a smaller tank,(like my twenty gallon) your canopy may have come with a starter kit.You know what i'm talking about, the ones with the front half that is a lid that opens to feed the fish or do what you need to do in the tank, and the back half is raised to put one bulb in, and the glass opening underneath is only about 5 inches wide. It gave me problems with growing plants. The bulbs meant for this hood didn't span the entire tank, so plants in the corner would grow all crooked and messed up by growing towards the light, and the one place in the light was where the incoming water from my filter would create a strong current, making growing weaker stringy plants difficult. the light was also at the back, which casted the shadows towards the front of the tank, and you couldn't see the bright colours of the fish. Since it only held one 15watt bulb, i only had .75watts per gallon!! I later found a DIY Canopy that allowed me to have the reccomended lighting for a tank of my size(3-2watts/gallon)and have lighting everywhere in the tank, not just the back. I urge you to try it for yourself if you're interested and all the parts can be purchased at Hardware stores (i got all of mine at Home Depot).
Glass Canopy
if you build the canopy above, you'll need a glass canopy to keep water and humidity away from the bulbs. You'll also need a glass canopy for a store bought ballast and hood. I prefer sliding glass canopies as opposed to the canopies with the bending plastic strip, as they block light going in from the center of the tank.
Heater
uhhh, im pretty sure that heaters are to get the water warmer....maybe?Duhhhh
Naw, seriously now, you're gonna want to keep the water temperature between 75-80degrees for your plants, depending on the type of fish you're gonna keep in the tank. 120-200watts is good for up to 35 maybe 40 gallons. I'd probably use two heaters for larger aquariums so that you heat more than just one corner of the tank at a time.
Thermometer
Get one cheep at the fish store.
Filter
Almost any filter will suffice as long as it's NOT UNDERGRAVEL or ones that need air pumps. For one, the UGF will make laterite use impossible, as it will spread it all over the tank, and they don't grow plants too well (or so i've heard). Secondly, the air bubbles will drive out CO2. For my 20 gallon, i'm using a penguin bio-wheel mini, and it's just fine.
CO2
SeeDIY
Substrate
Gravel
I buy my gravel from my aquarium dealer. It's "natural river gravel" probably just some sales bull name for "overpriced rocks off the side of the road". Anyhoo, it's 1-3mm in diameter and i know 'cause i bought it from the store that it's aquarium-safe. I've heard you can get the stuff dirt cheep at sandblasting places, but then you have to go through all the trouble of testing it for calcium carbonate, from shells, and all the other water altering stuff. i'm too lazy.
Laterite
this is an iron rich clay that's been exposed to tropical climates.oh yeah, it's red. it's great for the aquarium plants. I was lucky enough to find some at my aquarium dealer's, but there are many mail-order places that you can order it, or you could ask your fish dealer to order it for you.
Well, that's just about all the equipment you'll need aside from other misc. products/tools.Click here to find out how to start this undertaking.