I plan on breeding (hopefully) large amounts of CRS. So that's why I had planned on the weekly water changes which would deviate me from the outline non-co2 setup in your article. Do you think I can get away with no water changes with such a high bio-load?

I realize that the water changes will affect which system approach I take with this tank. In which ways it changes the system maintenance and setup is what I'm trying to nail down.

4" inches of Onyx will up the price a bit. If I use AS would leonardite still be of benefit? I'm thinking if not then I would actually save money not buying the black diamond and having to use less inches of substrate with AS.

I will look up Osomocoat as well.

I'm in the process of getting a water report as well and will see if that affects and substrate and inhabitant choices.

Thanks for all the help and I hope this isn't an annoyance. I use the search function here and at other sites for many hours at a time, lol, so I don't want anyone to think I haven't put the time in.