my new 55 gallon and a couple of it's inhabitants

Here a couple pics of my new 55 and some of it's inhabitants. It's definitely a work in progress, and I plan on adding a lot more plants, driftwood, and caves.

 

not quite sure what I want to do for a background yet. I kind of want to keep with the light colored thing so that the fish colors really show up

 

I've never really been into swordtails until my girlfriend pointed these guys out. Their coloration and fins are amazing. The koi swordtails are nice looking though...hehe I'm kind of going with a red fish type theme with this tank. The swords, the red line torpedo barbs, the clown loaches (red fins), and I want to get a small school of Rummy Nose Tetras. The only fish that's throwing it off are the two brochis I decided to throw in there from my other 55. The loaches like to hang out with them. Yea, I'm going to find a few more nice looking granite rocks and continue with the cave work. I also want to add a lot more plants to it. I know the next plant I plan on buying is going to be water sprite. I really like how it looks. The funny part is, I look at this new tank, then I look at my old tank, and the old tank just looks so blah lol I'm really going to have to re-aquascape it.

 

Here's another new pic of the tank (I like how this pic came out more then the other pic, the swords really catch your eye when you look at the tank) and another pic of a female swordtail.

 

A new pic of the 55. Added more plants and a school of 5 Rummy Nose Tetras. This tank is now stocked with everything I wanted for it. Just need more plants and more caves.

 

According to most sites while I was doing research on them before I bought them, they will get up to around 5 inches, then their growth slows way down. As another site points on, they can reach 12" but are usually smaller in the home aquarium. The rate I'm going with aquariums, by this time next year I'll probably have a huge aquarium so if they get beyond a "smaller" size it wont be a problem.