I am nearly ready to plant my first soil based freshwater aquarium, a 40 gallon breeder. I am going to try the Dry Start Method so I will only plant foreground / carpeting plants initially and allow them to fill in for 6 to 8 weeks before filling the tank and adding more plants and fish. I will NOT be using CO2 and have a Deep Blue Solarmax T5HO light fixture with 2-39 watt T5HO lights at 6500K and 5000K that is suspended above the tank at 8" to 12". The soil will be covered with Estes black aquarium gravel. After checking around to see which plants would thrive with the above parameters, I would like to get the following 3 species of plants for my initial planting: Marsilea hirsuta or Marsilea minuta / Staurogyne repens and a moss such as java moss, peacock moss, pella, etc. that I will attach to thin piece of slate for a moss carpet. Now I have 2 questions: where can I obtain these species? Can I plant the slate covered in moss now in the emerged state or should I wait until the tank is filled up? Thanks for any advice, information and suggestions.