Idea for tank

[vicmonahan139]

So In august I'm getting a 40 gallon freshwater aquarium after it's done cycling for hopefully only 2 months I will add fish. It will be one Rope-Fish aka ReedFish and a group of 6 khali loaches. I'm doing research and if I can't get a reedfish I will get a betta because it's my second favorite. But my question is do you guys have any tips? And what should the decor and theme of the tank be? I'm thinking skulls

 

[Colin_T]

if you get a filter now, you can cycle that in a bucket of water and move it onto the big tank when you get it. You don't even need a big filter to do it, just a couple of filter sponges in a bucket of dechlorinated water with a bit of ammonia and aerate it. Keep the ammonia levels around 3ppm and in a month or so you will have established filter materials that can go into a new filter and give you an instant cycled tank.