Recently restarted my tank due to sudden death of fishes and I took everything out and scrubed it. So I decided to give it an overhaul since I was gonna restart and try out making a planted tank instead. Bought 2kg of Gex Pure black soil and attempting to dry start with monte carlo in hopes of getting a nice carpet before flooding. This is how it looks like after i planted the plants.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RYFdVbz58549Pcea8

I was wondering how long do i need to keep it in such a dry start state before flooding it as I was hoping not to keep my remaining fishes in the spare tanks for too long. I understand that it may take quite a bit of time for the bottom to be fully carpeted even for such a dry start method. Just wondering if It is possible to flood the tank earlier (before the entire thing get carpeted) and allow it to fully carpet much slower? or will it just stop growing outwards to fill up the gaps once flooded.