Off to good start... What's the depth of the dirt? Normally you want 2"-3" of depth for the dirt alone then cap the dirt with gravel, or sand, etc... When the dirt isn't deep enough then sword plants can't properly root into the substrate, which may be why the red flame sword didn't survive. Another thing with sword plants is they are heavy root feeders which can rob a dirted tank of nutrients, this is why I always advise people with sword plants to invest in some root tabs... Whether it's commercially sold root tabs like flourish, API, or like alot of people including myself make our own root tabs using empty capsules that we fill with osmocote plus 15-9-12 granules.
Then you just bury the root tabs deep into the substrate around any swords, cryptocoryne, and val plants. Then replace with new root tabs every 3-4 months to keep heavy root feeders supplied with nutrients...
Currently I'm tearing down my 30 gallon tank so I can set it back up as a high tech planted tank, I was using it to house a 1.5" juvenile Festae cichlid but ended up selling her off because my male picked the other female so I moved the one to my 30 gallon tank.
Planted aquariums is a exciting part of the hobby, and will take time and patience until you start getting the hang of things. When I first got into planted tanks I knew nothing about plants, and how to keep them alive so it took some time and having a couple novice tanks... But my first real planted tank was my old 75 gallon high tech!!!
This is when I really started to gain knowledge about planted tanks, lighting, co2, etc... But here's a picture of the 75 gallon tank....
But now with everything I know now, and everything I've researched, I now can keep gorgeous planted tanks which is why I want to change my 30 gallon back to into a planted tank.
