The blue (not visible) will promote a flowering response and not a growth response. A visible green spectrum of light is totally useless for the plant itself as it reflects all the light back (that's why you see green).
Aim for 10000K if this is your first try with T8s; but I'd recommend powerglos instead if you can fork out the cash for them.
I love convicts! I have one male in my planted tank.
They wreck havoc if you have a male and a female in the same tank. Just one of either sex is ok in a tank.
Haven't proactively looked haha.
I might PM HFF and see if they have some but I like looking at fish before I buy them - I don't want any with kinked fins and that's quite common here.
I'm quite pleased with the tank so far. Plants are healthy and happy and the fish are thrilled too.
I see my L168 a lot these days. Wish I had some more of them.
Did you start with a cycled filter?
Do a black out for a few days, do a massive water change and remove all the gunk from the tank and use only 2 of those 4 bottles of CO2 mixture.
Flourish excel will help too btw.