New Starter - Fish Advice

Something to bear in mind when it comes to substrate is that you want cories. So you can't have sharp substrate, and from what I understand some of the plants substrates are sharp. Others leach ammonia into the tank for several months (ADA soil is notorious for this).
In other words, do plenty research 


Question to those with soil capped with gravel or sand and cories - do cories dig enough to mix the layers badly?

Something to bear in mind when it comes to substrate is that you want cories. So you can't have sharp substrate, and from what I understand some of the plants substrates are sharp. Others leach ammonia into the tank for several months (ADA soil is notorious for this).
In other words, do plenty research 

Sue is completely right on this... but just to give you an option that would work in a planting substrate as I'm guessing you won't have considered these products before... see https://tropica.com/en/plant-care/aquarium-soil/aquarium-soil/

Tropicas poor naming of their products isn't helping here... tropicas ' soil' is a complete product thag doesn't need capping and their 'substrate' is a base layer which does 

Top with sand for the panda cories. They will rummage in it for food, and if you go with gravel (which can be a bit sharp/rough) it can cause damage to the barbels near their mouths.

Yes defiantly think I will go for the tropica substrate with Argos play sand above .

Looking at the instructions on the tropica substrate it says add about a 1cm layer , but how deep would the sand be that goes on top? 4cm?

@Matt a few questions for you,

---ive just been looking at your site in the fertiliser section, and i see you recommend  The Aquascaper Complete Liquid Plant Food, but it says if you have a heavily stocked tank " we recommend that you have a separate macro and micro fertiliser " so if my tank was 73% stocked(according to the community creator) with a lot of plants would you not recommend the complete liquid plant food?

---how much fertiliser do you actually put in on a daily basis? would there be instructions that come with it?

---"give your plants a stable daily dose slightly in excess of the recommended amounts. You should do large weekly water changes to accompany this dosing regime," everywhere ive read says do smaller (10-20% ) weekly water changes rather than large water changes , so if i do large water changes wouldnt this affect the fish? (what is classed as a large change)?

sorry for the barrage of questions !! 

I can answer the last question!

The recommended water change regime is at least 50% once a week. Smaller, more frequent water changes are not as effective as one large weekly one.
You will read that water changes are necessary to remove nitrate. However, when the tank is heavily planted, it does not make much nitrate as the plants use just about all the ammonia made by the fish and they don't turn it into nitrate. But there are a lot more things excreted and secreted by fish which also build up in the water, although we don't have test kits to measure them. So even though there is little nitrate in a planted tank, we still need to do water changes to remove all those other things. [I once worked in a hospital lab and you'd be amazed at the things we tested in urine. Fish produce similar, if not exactly the same, waste products]





Something else that has occurred to me. Lights.

Fish expect the tank lights to come on every day at the same time, for the same duration. You will need to select a duration to suit your plants, and the time of day to suit your lifestyle. You don't want the lights to be on while you are out, and the tank in darkness when you are at home.
The room should have either daylight or room lights on for at least an hour before the tank lights turn on (equivalent to slowly brightening dawn) and then again for at least an hour after the tank lights turn off (dusk). And there should be a period of total darkness in the room for several hours a day. This is usually a night when we are all in bed!
This 'dawn and dusk' on each side of the tank lights on is simply to allow the fish' eyes to adjust. If the tank lights turn on in a dark room, or the tank lights turn off when the room is in darkness, the fish become stressed until their eyes adjust.

so you would recommend before i put any new fish into a tank to keep them in a separate once for four weeks yes? and if they show no signs after then to add them to the tank..   looks like im gonna have to cycle 2 tanks

What are your tap water nitrate levels? If high I would recommend alternate dosing of micro only and complete fertiliser. There are instructions on the bottle regarding how much to dose per litre.

I would have to get a test kit to check my nitrate levels but yea I'm supplied by Northumbrian water