Hey Hoppy. Thanks for your comments. I did realise the water was too much. What hapenned was (and you probably experienced this when you set your tank up) that I didn't realise how much the sand would compact and lose height when I poured the water with ferts into the tank. As a result I got an inch too much of water in the tank. Then I had a horrible time syphoning it out...which ended up with me having a mouthful of black sandy water (delicious)
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It's dried out now...I left a little bit of the top open till I got some of the water to evaporate. I also used a lot of paper towels to soak up some of the water from the surface. I definitely don't want BGA on my substrate so I'll take extra care. Thanks for the heads up.
I have no idea about the Java fern. This is a little experiment really. I'm not too sure about whether the leaves will melt or not.
As for planting the hairgrass...I think I'm just a little paranoid because I keep feeling that I'm killing the plants everytime I tear them apart while separating them. I know it sounds silly...I guess it's coz it's the first time I'm dealing with plants. I've separated them a little right now. I'll give it a couple of days to see if the grass is doing ok before separating them out even more. Btw, what kinda ppm levels did you end up dosing into the substrate when you kept it wet? I'm having trouble figuring that out. My first dose was pretty high, so I might just "top up" the substrate with regular water for a couple of days.