The crash was a learning experience. Inexperience trumped ability.
Instead of doing a whole carpet, which looks cool in my opinion, I'll just attach it to some small rocks or to the wood. I'll attempt some dwarf hairgrass and see how that goes. I was thinking of taking that other piece of wood and putting that on the substrate too, would that clutter things up too much?
It was my opinion regarding using an UG filter as when I pulled up my mats, theres was poop and debris everywhere. Which in my opinion caused the water quality to drop out-green water, other algae, shrimp deaths, it was a mess.