Just an update 2 years down the line:
This has been a difficult learning curve to say the least! Going from sheer frustration to elation pretty much on a weekly basis.
We left the tank cycle (see above notes) for around 8 weeks before adding 6 Danio erythromicron, sadly only 3 of the original have survived but have been supplemented with 2 of their offspring (they had many more but ate the rest)! They seemed to suffer from a disorder that affected their ability to swim, and within days became pure white and died (a difficult time with many frustrated tears on my part). The remaining 5 have developed a deep rich colouring and are stunning to watch (in the dark and as still as possible as they are ridiculously shy)! Feeding has been a problem as they won't come out until you have left the room. Even the "home raised" pair have reverted to type and stay hidden! I've tried frozen blood worm etc as well as dried food but find that the semi floating Hikari Micro pellets work the best and they do seem to hunt for them in the foliage. The Fluval Edge filter system does prove a problem as it shoots the food directly to the bottom front of the tank. Keeping the water level lower and the taller "grasses" in a loop near the opening allows me to place the food in a holding area for a little longer.
We also introduced 8 red cherry shrimp and 6 Amano shrimp the red cherries now number over 20 and we have 5 of the Amanos to date. At first we did have a problem with some of the red cherries not being able to moult (again many tears as I watched helplessly). Now we use the brilliant Genchem Beta-G and regularly see the ghostly shed "skins" in the moss and "juicy" healthy looking shrimp!
The plants thrived with daily doses of Tropica Premium liquid fert' and I have to admit got completely out of control. I felt overwhelmed as the tank became congested mostly by the Vallisneria, which grew up and across the top of the glass in a huge mass. It prevented light reaching the plants below and we lost a few including the Rotana rotundifolia. I also felt unable to vacuum the gravel successfully (I use a small airline pipe attached to a wire filter pipe cleaner so that I can bend it around the wood) nor clean the glass and major problems with algae resulted. I was worried about not being able to see the shrimp, particularly the babies and frightening the fish. I'm ashamed to say the tank became a very unbalanced, unclean, unhealthy place.
Now determined to bring it around I have read the excellent pruning article on this site and I have set about removing excess plants, particularly the Anubias cogensis which had to go as it grew too large and out of proportion for the tank. This is now enabling a vacuum every other day along with a thorough glass clean (the Marina small magnet is perfect for the difficult Edge) and 40% water change. The shrimp seem to be fine, hoping out of the way and although the fish are terrified they do seem to play/shoal more afterwards (after lights out of course) rather than never being seen.
I struggle with the moss (not shown in these photo's) as the prunings just disappear in the other foliage and to be honest don't like the look of it in our tank, it doesn't seem to work with the other plants. I would like to remove it but worry the shrimp babies would miss it. Any thoughts? I should mention that whilst doing routine maintenance I now keep the filter running until the very end and then clean that quickly.
We started with a foam shrimp guard on the intake filter but found that the uneaten fish food was saturating it. This would result in the impeller just stopping unable to last until the next week's clean! We have changed to a metal mesh and rubber version which has made a huge difference to the filters performance.
To date: Once again I am ashamed of the state of the tank and plants (see this posting
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/ferts-help-a-weekly-dose.41610/) so the photo's attached are from last year before the foliage took over and before the algae grew etc... It was hard looking at these pictures as things have gone so wrong, all down to my mistakes and fears.
However I won't give up and welcome any advice to help get our tank back to full health.