I read Staghorn is caused by flow and Co2 distribution issues.
When Tom Barr published his estimative index fertile dosing methode he stated that if you followed his instructions there would not be no possibility of a nutrient deficiency. So if the plants were not doing well or you had algae the likely cause would be CO2.
It is now know that he was wrong. He thought plants only needed CO2, light and NPK macro fertilizer and micro fertilizer with Fe, Mn, B, Zn,Cu, and Mo.
Unfortunately he apparently didn'tknowthat S, Ca, Mg, Which as also macro nutrients Fortunately for him his tap waterwas was rich in those and possibly Zn. So while it worked for hime and many others. For a lot of others it didn't work.Eventually people figured this out after many people went nuts playing co2 and water flow. And recently other fount the popular micro fertilizer Tom Barr used (CSM+B) is deficient in Zn.
So overall in my opinion CO2 is not worth the effort. The rest of your plan sound good. For me my big issue has been hair algae and a little bit of Black bear Algae.
I recently ran into
this post regarding hair algae melting away when phosphate reducer was used. The general conclusion people made was that it wasn't the drop in phosphate that killed it. Instead they speculated the phosphate remover also silicate which killed the algae. I don't know if stag horn algae needs silicate so I don't know if this helps.
I have done some teasting in a small 1 gallon plastic container that contained plant trimmings I wanted to keep. It also has hair algae. First off I removed the gravel from it. That did appear to reduce the amount of algae. I also just dumped in some phosphate remover. Then later I switched from my regular magnesium sulfate, calcium chloride mixture to a liquid Calcium carbonate magnesium carbonate his. This also appear to work. Currently the 1 gallon tank has minimal algae in it.
Phosphate remover is iron hydroxide. when it reacts with silicate it forms a non-soluble solid. Calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate also do the same. What I found really surprising is that my tank uses RO water and it it is a plastic tank. The only source of silicate in my tank would be the black diamond blasting sand. I am guessing my substrate is releasing some. Also many people say to focus on healthy plants instead of algae. I know from past experience that does work but why? My guess is that although plants don't need silicate they do take it in. So if you can increase plant growth enough it might reduce silicate levels enough to stop hair and BBA growth.
