I then took some used peat (in blocks) from the 10G that was taken down and lined the bottom of the tank. The peat has some good mulm in it also. From the picture you can see I added the first amount of substrate.
 
For substrate I'm using pure Flourite Black. This sin't pure black as people make it out to be. There are some trace reds, white, greys. I do like it though. I washed the flourite out in a shallow bowl I had. The first bag was low dust but the second is terrible.
 
After I washed and got most of the Flourite into the tank I started to hardscape. I haven't found any really nice rocks or even a decent peice of driftwood yet. I'm starting to get discouraged. I did manage to take one out of "dewalltheway" on plantedtank.net book and use a peice of slate to make a cave and then put substrate over it. I saw it in his 55G journal and knew I wanted the same thing.
 
Then it was time to start getting accessories setup. I'm going to use an AquaClear filter (cause I had it). Also not pictured is a 100W heater.
I wanted to make sure I could have shrimp in the future so I bought a spare mechanical filter and cut a place for the extra AquaClear filter tube I had.
Looking at everything getting setup I got excited and knew it needed water tonight. I started to fill the tank and it didn't stop until I reached 2" from the rim. I'm leaving room for rocks and driftwood when I find some.
  
So know I'm at the cycling stage. I'll be looking for more hardscape this week to put into this tank as well as looking for plants. I decided to put my 24" Coralife fixture on top and light it up to see how it would look. The light is a 50/50 and it's being replaced with a 10,000K. I also have some Coralight adjustable legs coming as well. Should be here in a week.
This is how everything settled the following day about noon.
I have 1.8wpg of lighting at 10,000k. I'm going to be buying some plants now and getting that potion going.
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Well over the last week I was on the hunt for hardscape and also plants. I didn't have any luck looking for plants but I'm off to a few places tonight.
As for hardscape, I added some more slate to the right side. I wanted to make it look like a wall, sort of. On the right side I was pondering going with more slate without a cave and have having step levels so I can plant different kinds of plants. I decided on a larger round stone I found. Doesn't look bad but I'm not 100% satisfied. I found a unique peice of driftwood at a LFS and got it cheap. Again not 100% satisified but it'll do.
I didn't have any plants for this tank but I wanted to start the bio load. I took what little Java Moss I had and tied to the driftwood. I then took two very small Java Ferns and also tied them to the driftwood. Since I have so much Java Fern I decided to put 2 of my larger ones into the Flourite to see how it grows. The last plant I tossed in is something a friend gave me. I have no ides what it is but I thought I would try it in this tank.
I added more plants last night. Here's some pictures of that...
Dwarf Hairgrass and Dwarf Baby Tears.
  
After staring at the tank for a while, my finance made a comment about how the large white rock doesn't really fit into my darker scheme. I got to thainking how I could go darker in hardscape and also higher as has been suggested.
I went on a hunt today. At the my very first stop I found an amazing peice of driftwood. It's dark, marbled, heavy and has already been cleaned. I brought it home, removed the pricetag they stapled on and gave it a boil bath. I then went and did a re-scape of the right side of the tank.
 
I tied a good batch of Java Moss to the top of the driftwood. It's only about an inch away from the water line but it'll keep me on my toes about keeping the water level where it needs to be. I also added some Needle Java Ferns. THey don't get very large but they grow into bunches.
Here is a picture of the temperature gauge.
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