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You have too much light to be able to depend on the fish for fertilizer. That means you need to dose NPK and trace elements. You can buy them on line as potassium nitrate, mono potassium phosphate and CSM+B for trace elements. They are very cheap. If you want to rely on the fish for fertilizing, expect very slow growth, and use less light, by raising your light fixture about 6 inches above the tank.
I agree completely with the above comments about your substrate. All you really need is ordinary quartz sand, which you can get as pool filter sand, or even get a bag of sand sold for making cement, from a Home Depot type store - $5 or less for more than you could ever use. You put a half inch or so of back yard soil, collected from a spot you can be sure has not been soaked with weed killer, insecticide, or other chemicals, under a layer of the sand. Then mix it up with that sand and add more sand on top. That should add nothing to the cost.
I agree completely with the above comments about your substrate. All you really need is ordinary quartz sand, which you can get as pool filter sand, or even get a bag of sand sold for making cement, from a Home Depot type store - $5 or less for more than you could ever use. You put a half inch or so of back yard soil, collected from a spot you can be sure has not been soaked with weed killer, insecticide, or other chemicals, under a layer of the sand. Then mix it up with that sand and add more sand on top. That should add nothing to the cost.
