Yesterday I was able to pick up the pool filter sand I ordered. I filtered it by running water through it with a hose and draining off the dust and cloudiness. I bought 2 50lb bags and ended up filtering about 1.3 bags for the tank.
We went on a hike and I found a nice piece of driftwood, so I submerged it in a tub in the garage to begin the curing process. In retrospect it’s a little large, so I may not end up using it. A piece that large would be better if it were hollowed.
This morning I tried to remember what aquarium communities I used to frequent. I rediscovered Aquatic Plant Central, a forum I joined back when I was into freshwater plants years ago. I seem to recall picking up some plants from forum users (java fern and something else). applesnail.net appears to be down but Wayback Machine shows an image from March, so hopefully that is a temporary development. It looks like petfish.net forums were taken down and it’s a half-baked WP blog now.