I like to take it a step further. Research the habitat of your fish, if you can. Give it the same general type of substrate. Try to emulate the current levels it lives in.
My Epiplatys huberi have begun to respond to having peace lilies all along the back of their tank - a cheap imitation of the bushes that hung over their stream in Gabon. Those bushes had enormous numbers of small spiders - probably their food. I am not going to go that far.
But before I had overhanging leaves outside the same tank, they hid all the time. Now they swim under them.
Give them plants in the water - they may not have them in the habitat they or their ancestors came from, but small fish like to be able to hide if they feel the need.
And very importantly - social fish need to be kept in large groups. Alone, those species don't show much. Territorial loners need to be alone. Check out the needs.
I'm with you on the backing - I paint the backs of tanks, and sometimes the sides, as small fish usually live along the banks or shores. If you don't, they spend their lives waiting for a predator to loom out of the room the tank is in.
