Resurrecting my tank and my interest in the hobby

[DarwinsRevolver]

Hello new friends!
I've just joined because I'm getting back into the hobby after losing interest for several years.
I used to live in Melbourne about 10-is years ago and was really into my 6ft South American (Rio Negro) Biotope Aquarium. At that time I was successfully breeding 'wild type' Angel Fish and Apistogramma agassizi double reds.
After moving out to the country (central west Vic) I couldn't afford to continue to run full-spectrum T8 fluro globes and resorted to using regular household globes. As a result, I lost most of the plant species I had been growing and the tank was slowly taken over by blue-green algae. I also had issues with 80-90% of new fish slowly dying off over a couple of months on the handful of occasions I tried to re-stock.
As a last resort, I finally found an online retailer who would ship me a 6 ft full-spectrum LED light bar and that has completely turned things around. The blue-green algae is almost totally gone and I've re-stocked most of the plants I had back in the day and I love looking my tank again. I also set up a proper quarantine tank and the first new acquisitions will be exiting quarantine and going into the display tank tomorrow.
As I'm now living rural, I've stepped away from the strict Rio Negro biotope and am doing more of a generic South American Biotope. I'm aiming for it to help pay for itself to some degree while I build it up, so I'm starting with species that I can grow/breed up to trade with the sort of aquarium keepers we mostly have around here, starting with some livebearers. My first acquisition is a breeding group of Black Bar Endlers and, assuming they go well, I'll probably order in some Green Swordtails and German Blue Rams come the spring. I'm still a bit of a purist about maintaining forms that are (or are at least close to) wild type. I'm hoping these species will fetch a modest premium in the local trade as they are a bit fancier than the usual fare on offer, but not out of reach for the average fish keeper. 
In the mean time, I'm keen to connect with any other keen aquarists with similar interests around Ararat/Stawell/St. Arnaud/Horsham and also to find anyone in Victoria who is growing Red Cabomba (C. furcata) who would be willing to sell or trade me some trimmings.

[Bettarazzi]

Welcome. If you’re able to make the drive to Melbourne occasionally you might consider joining the Aquarium Society of Victoria. They just had a Fish Fair a few weeks ago that would have been a good opportunity to get rid of surplus plants and fish.