Hi,I am planning to build a planted aquarium and to be honest I am new to the subject.Tough I would like to know what kind of substrate do I use.

what kinda plants are you after?

Not sure about the names but mainly I am going to build this tank to reduce nitrate from the main tank.

I have my plants in gravel and they seem to be doing just fine.

there is this great sire called the planted tank. It has lots of information ! It has a ton of pics. I dont have a planted tank (yet) but I think Im going to use eco-complete. Low light plants require 2 watts per gallon of water.

if you go with the red gravel that the petstores use with their plants i highly highly recommend you put it in on a dry tank after like two hours of rinsing cause it will be a mess i had to change out my filter pads twice and everytime i did any cleaning but after a week of settling i personally love it easy planting and plants love it. i dont remember what i used though but its in a bag and its dry i would not go with that brand that sells it still wet that makes a huge mess.

I just use your regular run of the mill gravel. Nothing special. But i do keep the tank lit for about 8-12 hours per day which really helps for plant life.

one suggestion that has made my life easier is this book i use i picked up at the lfs is the 101 best aquaruim plants by mary e sweeney its a great book with lots and lots of info and tips

I would go with small gravel. With sand fish poo sits on the top, with gravel all the waste gets into the gravel which gives the plants nutrition. Dont ever clean the gravel either

Ok thanks delboybully I think that's what I am going to go for many suggested like you said.

i have amazon swords and umbrella plants in my 120 gallon with black sand... the umbrella plants are doing better than the swords.
i also have swords in my 60 gallon planted in small gravel, and they seem to do better except for the fact that the fish are eating them

a couple of things i suggest i have noticed with my plants is that i need to add potassium and iron to the water i use florish bottles of fertilizer works great like if you see the lower leaves are dying off and just being big stems with just leaves around the highest part of plant add potassium that si what helped me out a ton with the cabodia plants