Aquascaping a divided tank?

1. Get your plants from fish club auctions, friends with ponds, high school biology labs, streams.

2. See if you can get cheap bunch plants (eg. hornwort/foxtail, najas/guppy grass, etc) to replace the moss in the spawn tank. Moss is expensive and best utilized for aquascaping, in my opinion.

3. Other mosses, if not "happy" will end up looking a lot like java moss, and can be expensive, esp. taiwan moss. I suggest christmas or flame, but only because these are more budget minded. (well, they look pretty decent too :) ) If you can tie these too bits of little bits of stone, let them grow out, and hide them behind nice pieces of driftwood, you can get a good result. Most mosses will carpet, if you can train them. You can buy mesh steamer bags for seafood at the grocery store. This is what i use to tie things to drftwood and such. Needle point canvases are also good, but white and distracting if not well covered. These can be purchased in craft stores.

4. Start a stock tank for your plants. Set a cheap soda bottle type CO2 outfit and set this up with a 10g tank outside in the sun. Don't have any fish. Maybe some shrimp if you have any, but no fish. Grow out your plants here, especially vallisneria, which is cheap and grows fast. Swords too. If you can get anything to multiply, put it in this tank. Pull stuff from this tank to work on your scape.

For your foreground, i'd invest in a few anubias nana. I got some for free lately, and they are working out well aesthetically. For your background, I'd use the java fern if you've got some tall ones, or larger anubias (since this seems to be a low light tank) Place the swords in the corners, if at all. They tend to look awkward with moss carpets, and usually need more light than moss.

One thing you might consider is adding a few bunch plants. They grow fast if you've got decent water and decent light, and can shade the moss and anubias from the higher light that these plants tend to dislike. Avoid reds though, these can be demanding.

You might also consider not investing a ton in the Eco-complete. It's a tad overrated. aquarium plants (dot) com has a good substrate that they will ship to the continental US for free (last i checked) and this has served my purposes quite more economically. It's a black colour as well, if that's what you were going for.

http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/

here are some good inspirations, maybe.

I apologize for the sloppy answer. (I couldn't help but butting in, sorry) Aqua-scaping indeed is expensive, and it is my personal opinion that budget minded people can have just as good a tank as one who is willing to spend thousands.