Aquarium History part 2 - 2.5 Gallon

From the previous aquarium post, I have decided to then buy a 2.5 gallon aqueon tank.  I initially chose the tank because it is made of acrylic instead of glass which would make it more portable and lighter.  Also it came with a built filter.  Problems are that I didn't notice that the refill cartridges for the filter was very pricey, 3 for 9.99!  I also had to buy a heater for the tank since winter was coming up and I did not want my fish to freeze to death.  The incandescent bulb that came in the tank was pretty yellow and dulled the color of the fish and providing poor light spectrum for the java fern. so I bought a compact fluorescent bulb with a 4000K rating from wallmart.  Initial plan was also to plant the tank with some java fern to soak up some of the nitrate to keep water quality high.  Initially the tank went well, it took only about 1 week for the tank to be fully cycled as we seeded the gravel with the gravel from the previous 0.8 gallon tank.  I also added nutrafin cycle which i thought helped a lot in speeding up the cycling.  

2.5 Gallon Tank - Early Stage