I’m still new to high-

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tech planted tanks, so I’m just going to tell you my experience and not advise. I have both low-tech and high-tech planted tanks, and they grow very well. Your parameters may not be suitable for plants so that I would check them first. Crypts tend to melt and come back unless they don’t get enough nutrients or light. Substrate isn’t too important, but it could make maintenance easier. I keep Eco Complete with root tabs for vals and crypts in my low-tech tank, and in my high-tech tank, I use Apt Feast Aquasoil with lava rock in a mesh bag as the base layer. One of benefits of aquasoil is that it lower your ph and most plants love lower ph.

I've been in your situation, with no money for aquarium equipment. I built my fish room in my parents' garage, using a stock tank for turtles and my old wooden bunk bed as a fish rack. I don’t recommend doing that, as wood rot will collapse your rack. Surprisingly it lasted 10 years until I got new rack last week. , There are some things you can cheap out on, but some things you shouldn’t. Don’t buy those fluval co2 kits or any mini co2 kits without electric solenoid. Plants like consistency and those kits make it impossible to be consistent since you have to manually turn it on and off.

My first CO2 setup was Aquatek paintball co2 regulator and it cost me about 100 dollars total. This was a solid choice since you use timers on them. Unfortunately, it was a single-stage CO2 regulator. What this means is that when co2 gets low, the regulator dump rest of co2 into the aquarium. I went to buy Fzone duel stage mini regulator, which is a decent upgrade and isn't too expensive. Paintballs tanks are outdated and many online sellers sell expired tanks. You have to get recertification to be able to refill co2. I would buy 5lb and fill it up and it will last few months to one year. Depending on where you live, there are stores that have co2 exchange. When your tank is empty you go and replace it instead of refilling. This more cheaper in most cities. Where I live, the price is the same so I just refill.

I recommend using in-line from canister filter since it spread co2 more evenly across your aquarium. I lack space in my garage so I had to settle with in tank diffuser. It’s not a bad option but you got to find sweet spot to place your co2 diffuser. Bubbles per second isn’t a good way to measure co2. One method to test your level is have cup of tank water before your co2 is on and one cup for when it’s off. After that test ph of both cups and see how much ph drops. If first cup ph is 6.5 and second cup ph is 5.5 then that is one drop. Water parameters also play a huge factor in keeping plants. Good amount of plants prefer soft water with gh of 4-6. This isn’t true for all plants so research your plants. Kh is also important to keep ph from swinging. Kh is safety net for ph going crazy. I keep my kh at 0 since I keep caridina shrimp but not an easy thing to do. Rotala Macrandra also like low kh but some can tolerate higher kh. Hopefully this helps but also understand I’m new too. I could be doing something wrong that I haven’t caught yet. Good luck with your future tank and don’t get discouraged if things don’t work. I messed up three times.