Well, try to look at it as that your enthusiasm will build. This happens a lot, where folks think I'm raining on their parade because, naturally, we envision the final product of lovely, healthy plants, arranged in a beautiful scape adorned with happy healthy fish. There's nothing wrong with this at all, in fact it would be abnormal if such enthusiasm were missing. When I first learned to ride a bicycle I always imagined myself as an experienced rider doing experienced riding things and travelling to experienced riding places. But then reality set in as I started and the only thing I was soon focused on was how not to fall off and sever every tendon in my body.
I just think people put too much emphasis on the wrong things in the beginning, which takes attention away from the right things, ultimately making whatever disappointments that do occur along the way that much more acute. There are a lot of things to juggle. If you don't worry about things like aquascape, or fish or fancy lighting or whatever and just think about the how and why of healthy plants, you'll find that the energy redirected along this path generates a better chance of actually achieving that personal vision.
Plants do better with massive levels of CO2, water changes, dosing and minimal lighting in the beginning. They have been grown as terrestrial plants in the nursery and therefore have a terrestrial physiology. They have access to atmospheric CO2, as much as 300ppm or more. Then they are flooded and start to drown. They may only see 3ppm or 10ppm. The physiological changes are immense and sometimes extreme measures are required to get them going. If you do everything right and it takes a month to stabilize the tank then sure, fine, but that hardly ever happens.
Without fish to worry about you can crank the CO2 as much as you want. Fish in the tank means you have to feed them causing more dirt to accumulate in the tank. Dirt is algae's friend because it de-stabilizes the tank system due to poor bacterial populations. You then have to split your loyalty and worry about fish health first. Having no fish liberates you from all of those responsibilities and allows you to concentrate on healthy plants.
It's somehow become politically correct to pay lip service to fish, and that's because there are a lot of people coming from fish only backgrounds. I'm not a politician, I'm only interested in understanding the truth. The truth is that the healthier your plants are then the healthier your fish will be. Healthy plants will absorb high levels of ammonia for example. Ammonia is responsible for more fish deaths in tanks than any other causal factor. Unhealthy plants dump ammonia back into the tank. Healthy plants add a much higher oxygen content to the water than any filter or air pump could ever dream of. Higher oxygen uptake by fish allow them to deal more easily with stress and even to deal with with pathogens because their internal systems become more robust. It is therefore a much more rational approach to give top priority to stabilizing the tank system and to maximize plant health, which may require a few months of extreme CO2 and disturbance. After that you can start to see how high you can get the light and what changes to flow/distribution/CO2 are required. You can then try to determine how much you can lower the CO2 to then accommodate the fish. It's just a much smarter path to travel I reckon.
Cheers,
