Okay... Got the substrate changed out on Friday night. I ended up draining most of the tank into a large rubbermaid storage container. I should have taken a pic of the tank before I changed it out... it was this really annoying teal/aqua and black gravel. And my stepdaughter had vaselined a rather tacky and badly-printed (off-set picture) background to the back of the tank.
I took out almost all the gravel and put in about 10 pounds of fluorite and then 20 pounds of more natural-looking gravel. The next day, I took the BGknifefish and the lonely orange swordtail to the LFS. Then last night, when stepdaughter came over, she wanted to get the two angels out too. They were trying to kill each other anyway. So we took those to the LFS too. Now there are just 5 neons, 1 green neon, and 3 little cories. So this pic is actually out-of-date too. So far, there is one Amazon sword and two crypts. I have a piece of bogwood that will go in there once I get the java ferns. Eventually it will be heavily planted. The plant in the middle (the red one) is actually plastic.
If anyone has any suggestions about other plants, feel free to let me know. Right now, I have a coralife full-spectrum reflector bulb (15 watts) and an eclipse daylight bulb (15 watts) in the hood. I have to do water tests today, so I don't have parameters at the moment. And soon I will be adding DIY co2 (using flourish excel at the moment).
I took out almost all the gravel and put in about 10 pounds of fluorite and then 20 pounds of more natural-looking gravel. The next day, I took the BGknifefish and the lonely orange swordtail to the LFS. Then last night, when stepdaughter came over, she wanted to get the two angels out too. They were trying to kill each other anyway. So we took those to the LFS too. Now there are just 5 neons, 1 green neon, and 3 little cories. So this pic is actually out-of-date too. So far, there is one Amazon sword and two crypts. I have a piece of bogwood that will go in there once I get the java ferns. Eventually it will be heavily planted. The plant in the middle (the red one) is actually plastic.
If anyone has any suggestions about other plants, feel free to let me know. Right now, I have a coralife full-spectrum reflector bulb (15 watts) and an eclipse daylight bulb (15 watts) in the hood. I have to do water tests today, so I don't have parameters at the moment. And soon I will be adding DIY co2 (using flourish excel at the moment).
