Water Gardening: Plantings for a Fountain, 0 by Venturan

Venturan wrote:
Hi all,
DG is such a great resource, so I thought I'd ask you all a question about adding marginals to a fountain basin.

A few years back, I found a concrete urn planter that I thought would make a great cascading fountain. I also bought a 48" prefabbed molded plastic circular in-ground basin at HD that had 3 shelves around the edge to put marginals (SIMILAR to the attached picture I found online). The 3 shelves are about 12" long and only 6".I had my father in law build a stand so the urn would sit at the water line in the middle of the basin and houses the pump. It's turned out fantastic. When I can find my camera, I'll try to add a pic of my fountain to the thread.

So I'd like to soften & cover some of the edges of the black basin using marginals on the shelves. However, I'm completely new to growing plants in water. A few of my local nurseries carry marginals. However, I'm unsure how to "plant" them. The containers they come in are too tall and would stick up above the water line.

Here are my questions: Are there special low height containers that I should use? Do I just cut the containers down? Should I find some other type of container to keep the soil in, since the water in the basin is fairly turbulent when the pump is running? If I have clay soil, can I use it, or is the clay that's included in the pots at nursery a special type of clay? Do marginals need any type of fertilizer? Anything else I need to know before plunging plants in the water?

Thanks for all of your input.