Hi and welcome! Both to the forum, and to the hobby! It does get addictive!
I was in the same boat as you really! In that my dad always had an aquarium going while I was growing up, and I enjoyed watching it and occasionally helping him clean it when I was a kid (and he was old school, so it really only got cleaned 2-3 times per year!) but I loved doing the gravel vac! It was like magic, the way it sucked up all the muck, but left the gravel behind - so I always wanted to do that part, lol).
But didn't get my own tank until much much later, as an adult.
Love the look and the start you've given it! My only suggestion right now, is to remove the dracena plants - they're not an aquatic plant, and will eventually rot in the tank... not good for the plants, nor for your aquarium! You might be able to grow them emersed- which means just the roots sticking into the tank water at the surface, with the main plant above the water, but can't grow them submsersed for long before they'll rot and release all that nastiness into the water and substrate.
But! There are a huge amount of aquarium plants that will thrive! And as far as your fish and water quality is concerned, the more the merrier! Some fast growing stem plants such as Limnophilia sessilflora, elodea, guppy grass or wisteria are great, as are floating plants like salvinia, water lettuce or amazon frogbit. Floating plants are especially good for sucking up ammonia from fish waste and using it to grow, before nitrifying bacteria turn it into nitrites, then nitrates. Fish also really feel safer with some floating plants on the surface, since they don't know there are no predators to worry about in the tank, and appreciate the cover floating plants provide.
For a large leaved, dramatic looking plant like the dracenas, you can't beat one or two of the amazon sword plants! They can grow huge, but that takes time, and they'd do well in that sized tank for a long time.
As an example, I'll show one of my old tank set ups that had an amazon sword plant- but bear in mind this was only a 15.5g tank, so half the size of yours!
View attachment 350185
Bear in mind that this is one of my first tanks, so no special expertise needed or fancy equipment to get them to grow like this. I'd also often forget to add any fertilisers! Big fluffy plant on the left is the limnophilia sessilflora I recommended, precisely because it does so well usually and sucks up ammonia, fish, fry and shrimp love it as it's excellent for hiding - and it's so easy to maintain. Just cut the tops off where you want when it's growing tall, then can replant the top you trimmed off, and both parts will keep growing.
In this tank, I'd been planting in a hedge style, to hide the sponge filter that's behind that hedge of L.sessilflora
In front of that is some rotala - I've only had success with that once, while it was in this tank with no fish that disturb the substrate, but once I put some cories in here, they kept snuffling around and uprooting the rotala until it all eventually died. Need deeper rooting plants when you have little diggers! lol.
But, the main point, in the centre is an amazon sword plant. They're all
Echinodorus, but there are a variety of types now grown to choose from! I think this one was
Echinodorus rose, if I remember rightly.
Same tank, much later:
View attachment 350186
As you can see, the sword plant had kinda taken over this smaller tank! But, it looked amazing for the few years I had it in there, grew an amazingly large and healthy root system, and can be a stunning addition to a tank the size of yours, and look fantastic for years.
On the right, the tall plant with narrow leaves coming up the full height and trailing across the surface is vallisneria, another plant that would make a wonderful background/side of the tank plant!
I tend to buy plants from Pro-Shrimp, because I keep shrimp too and know their plants are shrimp safe (some plants bought from places like amazon have been grown abroad, and spayed or dipped in pesticides before they're allowed to be imported into the UK and EU, and are potentially toxic to shrimp and snails), but plants from tropica are also safe, and a lot of people sell their own grown plants and plant trimmings on places like Ebay too.
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