Hello Fishbone, welcome back!
it has been a long while to hear anything from you.
I am glad you are into fish keeping as well.
As for the new aquarium you are trying to set up for your wife, you can cycle it a lot faster if you get a bottle of Tetra SafeStart. For the plants, you can look them up here - http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/aquar....cfm?c=768
The fish tank and filter are looking good.
Same goes for the fish. A lot of local pet stores carry low quality fish from Asian farmers where antibiotics are overused. Those fish can easily catch diseases and die once they leave the water full of antibiotics.
Liveaquaria is the live fish and plants sub-site from Dr Frost and Smith. They carry really high quality fish. It is common to hear people's German Blue Ram or any other ram die quickly once got them home. Mine from Liveaquaria lived for years. Although they can't guarantee the male/female if you asked. I got two female German Blue Ram the last time I ordered from them.
Yes, plants need special lighting. I use T5HO lights for made for aquarium use. However, it can still work without good lights if you choose some hardy plants such as Java Moss, Java Fern.
Personally, I would not try to mess with water PH and hardness. Yes, driftwood will slowly make the water softer. That is fine. But stay away from any unnatural methods such as using commercially available "PH up", "PH down", etc. chemicals. They will bring more harm than good. Most fish can adapt to a wide range of water PH and hardness, given that you did not just dump them into the fish tank once you got them (they will die from sudden change in environment). You just need to acclimate the changes when transfer the fish to their new home.
