My new 50 gallon

Update on tank: Got my fish load up to about 10 baby swordtails, no nitrites, nitrates, ammonia.
Plants doing ok with the exception of a couple anubias showing signs of probably
nitrate difficency (clear to yellowing leaves) See pic on bottom left. Added some
java moss on a thin rock on top of driftwood and another moss and anubia
in the crevice front middle. Sags holding in substate, but will try to raise them a
bit next weekend. Running just the 6700 bulb about 8 hours a day so far. Any
suggestions for adding more plants welcome and other ideas on the yellowing,
brown spot in middle and clear leaves.

Your tank looks so healthy and clean! I like how you have a high side of your tank and a low side. If that is the look you're going for and you would like a little more variety you could put some stem plants on the left high side. You could do a few different types and then keep them trimmed shorter and shorter as you are heading toward the low side. On the right side you might what to have behind or in the middle of your anubias, blyxa or some sort of plant the size of blyxa that will grow higher than the anubias but still stay no taller than 1/3 of your tank height.

I always like to mix up the shape, size texture and color of my plants. It seems more interesting to me. I have seen some nice monotone tanks that remind me of the deep woods as well. Those are done with the all greens but different shades of greens and different leaf textures and sizes.

It really just depends on what type of look you're going for here. I do think whatever you do you need a little more variety of plants for more added interest.

... but I have to say... great start!

Got a few more pics. A couple of these pics show the contrast in color of the anubias green and gold. Still trying to figure out the yellow-brown spots on leaves. Best seen in the bottom of pic two.
Started adding ferts (seachem line of Flourish and Excel plus a little nitrogen. Will probably begin using trace next week. Still running one bulb 96 watt 6700. Enjoying the lunar lights although I havn't been able to spot TexGal's Pleco's yet. No more pics until probably next week as going to add a few gift plants from members and redo my 40 gallon hex. That will be a project in itself probably.

Tommorrow is the one month anniversary of my tank and decided to give an update. Things have gone smoothly and here is a list of plants and fish in it now.

13-swordtails (they growing quite nicely)
2- Bushynose Pleco's
3- Corydorus paleatus
3- Corydorus caudimacalatis
5- ottos (next week)

Bolbitus Fern (should it be this dark?)
Hygrophilia Sunset (small stems)
Ludwigia repens (small stems)
Bacopa caroliniana
Various Crypts
Various Anubias
Vals
Sags
Java Moss
Java Fern "windelov"

Dosing with the Seachem line now and plants beginning to take a hold. One of the pics shows how deep I left a couple Sags as they were growing well and didn't want to disturb them.

I know it looks like a disorganized aquascape, but will be doing a bit of moving around after the smaller plants and anubias get settled in. Still unsure about doing a low foreground and even thought about using the Hygro sunset with small trimmed stems, but that would be a job to keep trimmed.

The last pic is in another tank of two anubia's. I removed about 5 "portable" ones that were very algea coated and put them in a three gallon bucket. Dosed twice in a week with algeafix (API) and this pic shows how it cleaned them up compared to the one on right not dosed. The one on the left was a lot worse than the one on the right.

These latest pics were taken with my new Canon G9. Great camera not so good photographer, but for first time using I guess they better than my others.

A special thanks to Luis, Dave and Texgal for the advice and plants.

Comments appreciated.