Hi Kevin,

Welcome on board. Hobbyist changing their hobbies everytime. I was into different type of hobbies as well. Till I found i love aquascaping. Let me try my best to answer you.

1) The beginner plant is always the mosses and riccia. Mosses are able to grow between 24-28C. The lowest temperature the nicer they can be. But not below 20C. This is same to jave fern or windelov. If high temperature, they will turn to brown or black. Then die off.
Basically riccia need quite a strong lighting n CO2 to grow. Due to it is pearling easily. Lot of newbies like it. You can just let it float on the water surface to get close to the lighting. Or just tie it on the rock or wood.
Middle ground plants can be Cryptocoryne species. Wendtii and Cordata are easier to source from lfs. Beside that, Anubias species like barteri or nana is good for middle ground if you are placing the rock or wood in the middle ground. Remember that, anubias and fern are able to grow on the wood or rock. Their roots will melt if you planting it inside the gravel.
Background plants can be Echinodorus species like the normal sword plant which you can get from lfs. Or you can get nicer species like Red Rubin, Rose, Oriental, etc. But the price is above RM25 each and they grow up to 1.5-2ft height. Cyperus helferi which look like 'lalang' is cheap. It is always my favourite plant. A bunch cost rm1 to rm1.5 only. Beside that, Valisneria species is easy to keep as well. Other than that, you can get Blyxa aubertii.
There are lot of plants which I can name it. But not all the lfs know the name and you might need to google it for the picture. Print it out and show to the lfs.

2) 40W in total is good enough for moss and cryptocoryne tank. But not for others. Beside the T5 like CNT mentioned. You can get the PLL tube which is 36W and it is just 1 feet long. And you may need few pieces. Remember this, once you are having higher lighting. You need to inject more CO2. Otherwise, hair algae will grow before any plants. And once you are having higher lighting. You need to take care of the water temperature as well. A 6" DC fan will help. Chiller is a good choice. But pricy.

3) Make sure your tank water parameter is stable. Otherwise the yamato shrimp will just jump out or climb out the tank. Oto is another good algae eater. But they will live only when stable tank also. The best choice for newbie is SAE (Siamese Algae Eater). Get 1 or 2 pieces will do. Be carefull when you are getting it. Because there is another not so usefull algae eater named as Flying Fox look similiar with SAE.

4) You can mix the tetra or smaller fishes with shrimp. Normally we are not calling it as Prawn. Crystal Red Shrimp is kind of pricy and required a bit of experience and knowledge to keep it. Try with Cherry shrimp first. There is a type of snail named as Tiger snail which help to clean some algae. And they will not eat plant. Please DON'T get the crayfish aka lobster which will destroy your layout and plants. Because they like to dig and they eat plants.

5) The water flow pump you mean should be the overhead filter which is not advisable. And yes. It will release the CO2 to air fast. Trust me. I am keeping 2 monitor boxes which full of this kind of filter. For new tank, you can turn on the air pump when the lighting is off. Because of the fishes and plants do need more oxygen aka O2 to breath. Plants do need CO2 only when the photosynthesis is running and will provide enough O2 to fishes.

6) How many of CO2 is depends on what kind of plants do you have and the amount of plants do you have. And of coz, mosses, fern, anubias do need lower CO2 than stem plants. 2bps is good enough for low maintenance plants. But 3-4bps for stem plants.

7) Yes. You can re-use the filter. Try to get 2 pieces of ADA bacter ball and put inside the filter. It will help to gain and grow the bacteria grow.

Sometime different lfs will stock different plants and other stuff. You may need to make few rounds to check out. Beside the lfs you mentioned. Fish Paradise in Center Point shopping center which next to McDonald. Han Yang in Klang. Aquatic World in Damansara Damai. Kim Fatt in Kepong. Irene in Paramount. Desa Aqua in Tmn Desa are the lfs with planted tank stuff. My favourites are still NA in ss19 Subang, 88 marine (3 branches- Maluri, SunwayMas and Subang) and Fish Paradise.

NA stocking some snails if i am not mistake. If sold out. You can check with the boss - Mr Yee.

Happy hunting...

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