10 g planted puffer tank... ?s/advice/help!

[janky]

So I decided to venture into planted tanks. We had a spare 10 g that I set up in the kitchen

I used a basic black sand substrate, I have some mystery plant (in the back by the heater), some microsword for carpet (bad idea? I think it looks cool but dont know if it's a good 'carpeting' plant), and borrowed a piece of driftwood from my big tank.
Currently I have some RCS in there that seem to be thriving.

I'm running a coralife 14w T5 HO with the daylight spectrum bulb (6700k I think?) and DIY CO2 (yeast + sugar in a pop bottle).

For ferts I use Flourish liquid and Seachem's iron supplement. I also had a couple spare root tabs i wedged into the sand randomly.

I had a few ?s...

I had a cyanobacteria explosion and used maracyn to get rid of it. However there is still nasty white film on the tank and brown 'sludge' around the stems of some of the microswords.
What could this be? What fixes it?
(I'm trying to get pics, but they aren't sending for some reason. The brown sludge was so bad on the moss I had that I threw it away.

We had a dwarf puffer but it died in 2 days I'm chalking that up to the cyanobacteria, but still not sure. The test levels are consistent with ammonia - 0, NO2 - 0 and NO3 hovering close to 0.

Also, how long does a carpet effect take?
This tank is so difficult to clean because even the slightest bump of a plant uproots it and sends it floating! I definitely did not get enough sand

How does the setup sound? Anything I should fix/upgrade/research?

 

[fishfanatic]

Is the film on the surface thin and almost like oil? If that is it then that film is very common with new tanks. As far as getting rid of it, more surface movement BUT the surface movement will off gas your co2. So really the best thing to do is learn to like it. If it really bothers you then you can take a cup and dip it in the water just below the surface and it will 'skim' the film into the cup.
I don't have any experience with the rest of the questions, sorry...

 

[janky]

Well, it sticks to the tank walls mostly. I scrub it off with a sponge the best I can, but I can't get in between the blades of micro-sword without uprooting them and having to replant em.

I wouldn't say it's "oily" exactly, the best way I could explain it is like, wet cobwebs...

theres a brown slimey sludge on the stalks of some of the plants and that wispy white cobweb crap on the walls.

Here's a pic, but it's hard to really get a photo of... I dunno if it helps or not