Time to strip it down and clean it out questions

I am a newbie but advancing.

After Nine months of 23 fish in a 50 gallon tank, and about 7 assorted
plants, it is time to give it a good strip down and clean out. I had a
small UGF in the tank but it did not cover the entire bottom, and I always
do weekly water changes and gravel vacs. But I still have a large amount
of muck that needs to be cleaned out.

1. I purchased a new UGF plate that covers my tank bottom completely, and it
has 3 locations for "pillar" tubing. I also purchased a reverse flow
powerhead to add to it. The only reverse flow powerhead that I could find at
my LFS was rated at 170GPH. My current forward flow powerhead is rated at
300 GPH. As my primary filter I have a biowheel rated for a 60 gallon tank.
a. Should I close off two of the pillar plugs? Cheap cost and plugs will
be covered over by the substrate.
b. Or add a bubble column pillar? Cheap cost (I have one installed now
on my old UGF.), some added noise, and less visual appeal.
c. OR add a second reverse flow powerhead at the far end? about $40.00,
lots more hardware, wire routing, and even less visual appeal.
d. OR add my current forward flow powerhead at the far end? Cheap cost,
and may cause water not to cycle thru substrate and bypass the UGF plate,
also more hardware, wire routing, and even less visual appeal.
So in other words the I would like less hardware in the tank and also lower
the muck rating as well. But I need to find a happy median for the two.
What would you do?

2. When I first setup the tank, I used Bio-Spira bacteria to cycle, and my
ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates have been excellent at every weekly check.
But I inquired about Bio-Spira again at my LFS and been told it's on
backorder until December. So I thought to keep some of a cycle perhaps I
would retain about 15 gallons of tank water (3 brand new 5-gallon buckets
from Home Depot), keep the same plants, do not scrub the decorative rocks,
re-use the old filter media without rinsing it out for an extended period,
filter the substrate through an old pillow case, and add a dose of
Stress-Zyme. Should all these measures be good enough not to throw me out
of cycle too much?

I would welcome any suggestions.


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SAM