Help me decide on plants and stocking

Hey Fish Peeps

I'm about half-way with my new planted tank setup. I've got the light on order, substrate and hardscape bought and soaking in my outdoor tubs and the old retired CO2 setup assembled and almost ready. Now for planting and stocking....need some advice from experienced peeps on this forum.

The tank is a stripped-out Boyu Tl550 with a Zetlight planted light, Prodibio soil, Dragonstone/driftwood hardscape. I have the Boyu pump and a sump-style filter compartments that I'll fill with Seachem Matrix, sponge, filter floss and lava rock.

This is my tank inspiration for the layout but I will be making my own non-professional changes as I'm not the best aquascaper...For plants Im thinking various mosses, Anubias Petite bonsai, giant hair grass, Glosso? Montecarlo?

Id really appreciate any stocking advice-my thought were a nice pair of angels....not sure what else or anything else? I'm partial to liquorice and dwarf gouramis as well....Not sure of the aggression?

 

This is some hardscape Ive gathered so far as well as loads of spider wood roots and bits and pieces

 

Id love your opinion

 

Seeing as the tank is kind of cube-ish, and the driftwood you've got is quite tall, i think an island scape would be awesome. It makes it super easy to clean the interior glass too. I'm not sure if you'll have enough light at the bottom of the tank to do a carpet, so maybe decorative sand to surround the island will be easier.

For background plants, i'd go for easy stems. Rotala colorata springs to mind as it colours up super easily, or rotala rotundifolia. As you've got CO2 they'll grow like weeds. Alternatively, something like a Sword plant might work well. It'll grow super quickly, and might shade out other plants, but is easier to maintain. Another option would be a crinum or aponogeton. Both need quite a lot of nutrients and space for roots.
For midground/transitional plants, crypts are a personal favourite and grow in almost all conditions as long as the soil is decent. Something like a Crypt Wendtii Green will stay green, and gets a slightly hammered looking texture that will contrast well with the stems. Staurogyne repens is another option that has a really bright green with injected CO2, and will spread out over time. It does well kept trimmed too.
I'm personally not a fan of mosses due to the fact that they need a lot of work. When trimming you need to be careful to remove all the cuttings, as they have a habit of getting stuck in small crevices and slowly spreading. They do help to make an aquascape look older and more established though.
Other suggestions would be a bolbitis heudolotii placed in the center of the driftwood, as low down as possible. It's an epiphyte that grows pretty well, and will give a dense mass of plant in a few months. If you can't find it, then something like Java Fern will work well too.
Anubias and bucephalandra dotted around the driftwood and wedged in gaps between the rocks will help to soften and finish off the scape.

For fish stocking, a school of 8-10 harlequin rasboras and a pair of pearl gouramies would look awesome. I'd recommend a school of cories, but there's a chance that they will knock some soil onto the decorative sand when rooting around. They'll help catch any food missed by the gouramies and rasboras. Cherry shrimp will also help this.

Last bit of advice is to get more plants than you think you'll need. It helps a lot with algae when there are a lot of plants

 

Thank you so much for the ideas and advice! Yeah-I'm planning to get it 80% planted as I have some of the plants I need ready and waiting and don't want algae because of the low bioload. I'm super partial to harlequin rasboras so thats a great suggestion. Just ordered some buces online and swopping for mosses with a Shrimp Nation. Thank you again.

 

Loving these ideas and suggestion for hardscape positioning. I may have to corner-orientate the whole layout to avoid covering the light. The tank depth is 57cm -just measured. i'm also using egg crate to lift the whole thing up a few cm to het the height I need. I'll give the angels a think and just need to see full grown adults as Ive only seen juveniles at my LFS and enquired with a breeder. It may be tight...Hygrophilia is a great plant I'll try source it. Thank you so much again!