Angry Shark, Pretty Plants.

[squidneh]

My 75 gal has been planted for a few months now.  My rainbow shark used to be quite active and out and about, but now he only hides in his skull until the lights go out, unless he is warding off someone who gets to close and then zooms back in.  Initially I had left some of the plants floating, but then got to planting them all, so now there is no shade/cover, but even when there were areas of shade he only hid.  My gourami isn't too fond of the lights but she has gotten used to them lately and is acting pretty normal.  I was hoping he would, but it doesn't seem like sharky will follow suit.
 
I know many people have floating plants, but I'm confused as to how this works.  Here are my concerns
 
-I have one HOB filter and one internal, each at opposite ends.  This creates an odd current, like each half of the tank has it's own current.  I'm not sure how floating plants would do... is there a way to reduce surface current? My internal has a spray bar but it isn't very adjustable.  Right now it is on the back wall and the bar points up. I can't do much about the HOB.
 
-Will my other plants still get adequate light? I double checked my exact wattage and I am at about 2 watts per gallon give or take.  I'd classify it as low lighting.  My plants are all easy keepers, I had no idea what I was doing when I got them, nor do I really have an idea now, and they have all survived thus far.  I'm just wondering how much light will be blocked if I were to get floating plants.
 

 

[SeanTrollope]

it depends how many and what

 

[attibones]

With my tanks, both of which have plenty of floating plants, I keep the water level really high. Because you have a gourami, you'll want to baffle the HOB a bit so that the current doesn't shake them around too much. They'll tend to hang out in the slower half of the tank. That's what mine do anyway. To baffle the HOB you can just take a bit of sponge and cut out a slit just large enough to fit the output of your filter. Then it should do the trick. As far as the lighting, I have two t5 tubes (I don't remember the watts off the top of my head) but the light seems to get through to the lower layer. However, when I had floating hornwort, the light couldn't get through. Right now I have water spangle and frogbit and duckweed, that kind of thing. If you stick with those sorts of plants, you should be fine.