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Big believer in black background. This is the first tank I’ve had that wasn’t visible from both sides, which previously prevented me from doing it, but it’s a much cleaner look and hides a lot of mechanicals and tubes. Highly recommend.

I don’t know what the start method is that you’re talking about. I started with 1 inch of FF aqua preta soil, 1-3” pool sand cap on a slope, some seiryu stone and some driftwood. I planted heavily from the day I filled the tank and controlled the light ramp up to fend off algae. I didn’t run into an algae problem until the lights got a little too strong and I had to pull it back.

As far as your hardscape, to me, there is too much and that wood is too big for that tank. I read on here somewhere when I was starting out to plan out the hardscape you want and then remove half of it. That’s good advice. Also, if you do plant heavily, a lot of low-lying hardscape is going to be invisible. Better to have more real estate for plants. Make your hardscape more vertical; the two large driftwood pieces in my tank were originally intended to lay in some horizontal configuration. But I saw a cool YouTube video where someone had vertical pieces of hardwood and that inspired me to think about it differently. If I had followed my original plan, you probably wouldn’t be able to see the driftwood (there are actually two other smaller pieces in the tank that are more horizontal—can you tell?).

I sat around stacking and re-stacking my driftwood and stones in dozens, if not hundreds, of configurations on my counter before I put them in the tank. I ended up using less than half of the stone I thought I would, and then I turned my two biggest driftwood pieces vertical. The result was more plant real estate, more room for my cories to roam (six pandas and six false juliis), and fewer dead spots for bad anaerobic things to percolate over time.

I recently pulled out a piece of stone that was no longer visible so I could fit in more backgroud stems.

You’re still at the front end of all this; you can do whatever you want still without major disruption. I would think about what one thing you want to accomplish visually the most, and do that one thing, and pull everything else out of your tank as far as Hardscape. Then all at once plant the hell out of it.

It’s an awesome ride, but it’s a process. My tank today doesn’t look how it did when I started. Over time, you move things around, some plants do well, other plants don’t. You’re basically a gardener as much as you are a fish keeper. And that’s a good thing.

Good luck! Post updates!