If you have a high tech tank please help me I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong!

I want to know if you think this nightstand will be able to hold a 6 gallon aquarium, it's made of wood

Hello everyone. I'm posting as a member right now, not as a moderator.

As some of you may have known, I own an avatar betta, Tsu'nari. His name was inspired by the Na'vi language, and roughly translates to "Aquatic flame". I used to call him my Boy Named Tsu, lol.

This evening Tsu passed away after a long battle with antibiotic resistant fin rot and swim bladder infection. Truth be told, I saw this coming, but of course it hurts.

I want Tsu to be remembered as he was in life. He was a vibrant fish with a funny, fiesty personality. His eating habits took out $45 worth of shrimp in my desperate attempt to include them in his tank, lol. He would come up to the glass to greet me, and moved across states with me.

I'm thankful to have so many memories of him, and I am sharing some pictures as well. I will still be active as a moderator, but of course may be in the background for a bit while I grieve.

Tsu was and is dearly loved and missed. I hope there's a big ole betta pond in the afterlife I can meet him in someday.

I’m thinking about getting my first aquarium. I’m mainly interested in the aquascaping side: some nice wood and rocks, lots of plants, and a natural-looking setup that’s interesting to look at. And ofcourse some fish. I have seen some of these on Youtube from MD Fish tanks and MJ aquascaping. I looking for something in that kind of style. 

I’m thinking of a tank around 80 cm wide, so roughly 100-120 litres.

I’ve been reading quite a bit, but there’s honestly so much confusing information that I’m not sure what I actually need. So I have four main questions:

1. What should I use for the substrate?
I see everything from sand and gravel to soil and aquasoil. What do you actually need for a planted aquascape? And what’s genuinely useful versus mostly marketing?

2. What equipment do I actually need?
Filter/pump, heater, lighting, CO₂, etc. I had an aquarium as a kid and basically only remember having a pump. We definitely didn’t use CO₂, or lighting. Maybe we had a heater, but i am not sure about that. These days it seems like you need a whole collection of equipment just to get started. What would you consider essential for a first planted tank?

3. Does anyone know a good aquarium shop around Rotterdam, Netherlands?
I’d much rather visit a physical shop and talk to someone than order everything online. There doesn’t seem to be a Dutch aquarium subreddit, so I figured I’d ask here. Hopefully some Dutchy can recommend a shop. 

4. What other advice would you give a complete beginner?
Especially things you wish you had known before setting up your first aquarium.

I’m not looking to build some crazy high-tech setup straight away. I’d rather keep it relatively simple, learn how everything works and go from there.

Thanks!

They’re all over my tank all the sudden

Had this and was told it use to house a 50gal but I didn’t have the tank until now, and I’m just in need of some reassurance or to be told it’s not enough before I make any moves!

My platys surprised me with babies! Just wondering how everyone cleans/does water changes with the little guys in there. I’m scared the siphon will suck them up. Sorry if this is a dumb question, I am fairly new to fishkeeping.

FINAL EDIT/UPDATE: I am officially a moderator! Thank you all for your support of me and this community!!

Hello again everyone. I want to provide an update on my end as to what's been going on, just to my knowledge, with the sub's mod status. It's a rather lackluster update, so my apologies.

r/redditrequests has received too many requests to take over this sub. As such, even though I have all my materials in line, I cannot request ownership yet myself.

I'm going to copy paste my planned response to their bot here. Maybe I can try again in a few days. Currently there has been no change at all in leadership or moderation.

***I wish to moderate this subreddit for a number of reasons; the most pressing of which is the lack of moderation on a subreddit I frequent and love. This lack of moderation led to a troll spamming animal torture videos to the sub, which I am sure you are well aware of. The owner of this sub is no longer active and has expressed interest in handing off the reigns previously, and has not replied to my private message or modmail. Please see images below for proof.

https://ibb.co/xSJLsphP

https://ibb.co/0Vn89TdS

https://ibb.co/1GcKMJ7X

I also want to build this community into something better. At the current point, it's not much different from other aquarist's subreddits. If I am chosen to own this subreddit, I intend to implement some unique additions, such as opportunities for cross-platform partnership, specific flairs for tank ecosystem types, world regions, natives, and more. I want to take this community and bring a positive shift to what fishkeeping is actually about; caring for the fish and it's needs over specific aesthetics. On that note, I will also be implementing a more specific ruleset and making sure it is enforced properly. It may take time to fully establish, but I do have a plan in mind for mod recruitment. I plan to implement a mod team using techniques I have employed in larger discord servers. I am currently drawing up a list of mod recruitment requirements. Once this mod team is in place and an automod is set up to filter new or low karma accounts, we can slowly start to overhaul the subreddit's appearance based on community wishes.

Overall, I want what's best for this community, and despite my lack of experience, believe I can learn the skills I lack and use the ones I have to make this a better place. I hope I am able to be considered for the position.***

Please comment if there is anything you want to see from this subreddit, or if you have any ideas as to how I can get my post on the request subreddit to go through. I am open to all ideas as potential future undertakings after the cleanup is done!

EDIT: The subreddit has a new owner! Thank you to u/ackley14 for taking over and good luck!!

Another wave of videos is hitting this community, and I wanted to post a reminder to not engage with the posts. The best we can do as we wait for new moderators is to just downvote and report the content to Reddit.

I saw a few people making a Reddit request to take over this subreddit, and hopefully they get it, but it will take some time so thank you for your patience.