Today I installed my slate tile background and put everything back in my tank, sans fish. They're still hanging out in my 10 gallon hospital for a few more days.
I'm a little disappointed at how much egg crate you can see in the top right, but I guess I can live with it. I am, however, happy with how well I could hid my jet system and powerhead with rocks and plants. I'm not happy with my broken light, which will be mailed off to Marineland Monday, and that's why these pictures are so dark. I have the hood from my 10 gallon on now just to keep my plants alive, but its definitely not idea picture light.
My goal was to have as many "caves" around the tank as I could so when I get my GBRs they could pick a spot, and my other fish would have places to get out of the way. You can see a little bit of my pvc jet sticking out here, and you can see the poor, poor condition my sword plant is in...
For the first time in my life I'm using an airstone instead of a bubble-rod, and I wasn't really sure what to attach it to. I buried some of the hose and set my skull on top of it, and I think its working out. I eventually want to have CO2 coming out of this airstone once I change those out and get them producing again.
This is my tiny driftwood in the corner, and a weird reflection of me taking the picture. This is on the dark side of the tank where the hood doesn't reach, so that's probably why there's such a bad reflection.
I plan on getting some anacharis or java fern whenever I get my fixed light back. I'm leaning towards anacharis since everything other than my java moss (which I may toss) fits in the biotope, but I really like the way java fern looks. Are there any other easy to care for south/central American plants that resemble java fern that I could use instead?
I had the... rollers? biowheels? from my filter in my other tank so the bacteria wouldn't die, and I also had some of the decorations in there for the same reason. I moved everything back today, so hopefully I don't have to re-cycle the whole tank. It's been together and running for an hour or so now and I'm about to do a parameters test. How long would you guys wait to put fish back in it?