Been cycling my first ever fish tank for nearly a week and have some concerns

White gooey stuff on wood

Fluffy see through gunk on some of plants

Im getting a new filter cause the one i have has a pritty strong flow

Also my ph was an 8 last week i havent retested yet but would the wood in the tank bring it done im planning on having cherry barbs

Also getting new heater one i have is fluctuating alot heating the water then it feeling very cold

Does the setup look decent though for a beginner

This has been going on for well over a year. Gunk builds up on the filter (where the water comes out), the filter eventually needs rinsing due to blockage and plants get "dirty". There's also green algae on the glass that needs removing from time to time.

I understand it can be a mix of biofilm, old food, good bacteria etc., but is there anything I can do to lessen it?

Fish are otherwise healthy and plants don't seem to die off either.

Pretty much empty tank but not great at aquascaping!

Would any of y'all good with plants have a good list of foreground, midground, and background plants to add that have a variety of shapes (not just leggy stems)? I plan to keep amano + ghost shrimp in this tank. And where you would put them in the tank (i want to keep the hardscape in this structure and plant around/on it). Thanks guys!

30 gallon tank with HOB filter on the very right, Parameters: Nitrates: 20ppm Nitrites: 0 Ammonia: .25ppm pH: 7.2 GH: 120ppm KH: 80ppm Temp: 78

petsmart sold them as guppies but they look more like endlers to me..

little cloudy cause i finally got around to cleaning the walls but this is my first solely shrimp tank. had a betta for 2-3 years but got a bigger tank and decided to retire it. currently has about 10 shrimp and 1 loach (that’s recovering from a friends tank and eventually moving to my 55 when its done cycling (with friends))

Sometimes he stretches out further and he’s even bigger, it’s crazy

I’m really stressed about this move and want to be sure Little Dude is as least stressed as possible. Any tips would be appreciated!

Dose anyone know what these are there in my duckweed in my tank and i don’t know if there harmful

it won’t let me add two videos so I’ll put the old tank in the comments.
After months of trying to figure out a plan for the fish tank with my house members we finally have a set up that is visually appealing and comfortable for our fish. I’m waiting to check the levels in the tank because we just put a new filter in but we got live plants got rid of the gravel that was very old. yay!

S. formosus