I'm glad somebody got this thread going again. A couple years ago I had posted about challenges I was having with our first planted tank here. Thanks to some of the advice on this thread, I've really been able to get it dialed in.
Here's what it looked like at first just throwing some plants in there without knowing what we were doing. The house sitter didn't help leaving the light on all the time.
Six months later we'd done a lot of experimenting and things were looking much better:
After another 12-18 months, we had a lush little ecosystem going that I felt confident I could sustain.
It was a long journey, but we learned a lot from. After that experience, I decided to take a shot at building out a new aquascaped tank now that I knew a little about what I was doing. I'm about 9 months into that process now. Once I have a little time, I'll share some photos of that tank.
You gotta tell her that a 20 is going to be more stable and easier to maintain, plus it doesn't really take up much more room.