Had a great deal of fun with my Walstad
Earlier photo
Current look, some plants moved over to the left, some of the “bamboo” removed since it just lost all leaves and turned into sticks with a crown of leaves sticking out of the water (Bamboo? whatever the heck it was, just called Bamboo by the store, I have issues buying plants since we are a bit remote)
Definitely wouldn’t get the Swordtails for the next tank, I just wanted something orange to offset nicely against the green, but they pop out babies every few minutes it seems. I only started with 4 or 5
My wife just sympathises with the female Swords being permanently pregnant :/
I did grab a bunch of plants from a local online source once, highly recommended by locals (https://www.aquarzon.com) - all plants except one died fairly soon afterward and I had a massive outbreak of Black Beard Algae (!twice!)
(I mean their vallisneria died, how the HECK does val die? Stuff grows in the compost heap after I pull it out by the hand full usually)
I kinda like seeing the plants before buying them but at this rate I may have to make a quarantine tank running CO2 or something if I buy online again