A full tank shot at this early stage:
You can see the canopy balanced on top, with the lid duct taped shut to prevent the thing from falling into the water. It fits the 10g, but this tank is bigger and I had to get innovative.
The plants were suffering from the poor lighting and some of the "care" my mom gave them over the summer in my 10g while I was away on an internship:
As you can see, there was a fair amount of death, destruction, and algae.
The fauna at this point: a 3 spot gold gourami, an albino cory, three african dwarf frogs, seven black neon tetras, and two white clouds. These were all holdovers from my 10g and were about a year old.
Two new bulbs arrived from Big Als. One was broken, the other was a "colormax" bulb that lit up a ghastly shade of pink. I decided it was unusable, and ordered a 10K bulb to go with the 6.7K bulb that I still didn't have. And the crappy lighting continued...