This is my first plated tank and I think it is doing pretty good. IMO. ;)
It is a 75G with Coralife HQI lighting 150W x 2 = too much light... :(
My otto cats clean house, so it is all good.
I have 3 fluval filters running........
1 405, and 2 205s.
2 Hagen C02s.
Heavy stock of fish dwarf puffers, danios, glassfish, with a stingray that I have had for about a year in a half.
The plants are about 5 weeks in.
So far so good.
I am waiting for my stingray to $hit the bed.
Everybody keeps telling me it is gonna happen.

I don't know much about planted or fresh at all but the one thing that grabs my eye in the freshy world is a planted tank. I like the grasses and stuff but you probably want to keep some room on the sandbed for the stingray huh..

i am careful where I put the plants.
It is hard to see but the tank is wide and there is only one row of plants so he goes along the front and the back. Rays go back and fourth, and when he wants to go anyplace he just tears my plants up to get there.

I know the tank is too small but the fish store sells them by the dozens to people, I am sure with smaller tanks then mine, so I am afraid he would go to another small tank. I did not know my tank was too small.
I asked the guy in the store and he said it was fine. My bad.

He really needs to go into a 125G.
Till then, maybe he can live in your 125G with the gar. ;)

Many lfs are just trying to make a sale. I did my homework on a dogface and when i went to buy it, the store told me it passed. In reality, i'm sure they killed it. They told me they had a S&S puffer and had all the same requirements. They even called it a stars and stripes dogface. Got home and found out it grows much larger than a dogface and had 200 gal requirements. Needless to say i now boycott them and about every other lfs except one that is a SW only warehouse. The rest around me are puppy mill associated too.

update on tank.
I added a few different plants and took a few slow growers out.

What kind of halides are those?