good work my man

but you definately need more wood, in my own opinion

That is what I am working on. I've seen a couple pieces on ebay that might work, but I'm hesitant thinking I might wait for a warm day and head up to the Ohio river to search the banks. I also plan on getting some floating cover plants and maybe a few more swords.

shawn..swords and floating plants does not go well together coz swords needs A LOT of light to thrive..floating plants will cut the light they need unless you control their expansion...

the leaves looks awesome...too bad that in here , i would have to dig about 6 feet of snow to get some!

I was planning on preventing the floating plants from covering the entire surface, but I don't have any experience with live plants so all suggestions are welcome. I want something to cut down on the light and thought about some amazon frogbit for the surface. Would you recommend not having floating plants?

looks really nice

Thanks Tina.

shawn..you have a choice to do, either aquatic or floating plants,Limnobium developps long roots, that could get trapped in the swords..i would go only with limno aka amazon frogbit..and remember, severums loves to eat plants so a fast growing plant, like limno are great with sevs

i would go with some vals lol..
nice start to the tank

what kind of sand is that

Its silica (pool filter) sand, Van.

Tang O'...Vals?

vallisaria or whatever.. quite a few people on here use them. I use them in all my tanks, they are very fast growing and multipling, easy to maintain and can live in most types of water. look at my 10 gal DIY tank... those are vals

kk...thanks

kk...thanks

Shawn, Java ferns are very hardy and can thrive well in little light. They are simple to propogate too

TY Travis..they are definitely on my list of possibilities.