I'm just starting the saltwater journey, but I have a lot of experience with freshwater planted tanks.
You can set up a freshwater tank so it is very low maintenance and easy to keep looking nice. Or you can very easily make it a nightmare to care for. This is the trap most people fall into when trying to get that amazing professional aquascape look in freshwater for the first time.
Freshwater planted tanks are all about balance. To keep algae to a minimum/not visible, you need the right amount of light to the right amount of fertilizer to the right amount of plant growth to the right amount of co2 (whether injected or atmospheric). If you have one of these wrong (typically too much light) then you will get algae growth.
Regarding your questions:
Lights should be on for 8 hours. You can do a ramp up and down if you wish. This is only for your aesthetic enjoyment and not startling the fish/shrimp. Its not needed. I do a 10minute ramp up and down for my fish. Your lights can be on for 8 hours all at once or broken up however you wish (could do 2 hours in the morning, 6 hours in the evening etc).
Flow should be 4 to 8 times actual tank turnover per hour. So if using a canister filter you take the advertised number of gallons per hour and divide it by half (because canister filter makers are all big liars who test their equipment empty of media and with no head pressure).
To keep algae at bay you need healthy plant mass without getting out of balance.
Regarding balance. In planted tanks light is referred to as low, medium and high. Exact measurements on this is somewhat debated but generally low is 10-25 par. Medium is 25-50, and high is 50+. If you are over 200 par you better be totally awesome because otherwise your tank is a disaster waiting to happen. All par measurements are done at substrate level. Meaning it doesn't matter if you have 300 par at the top of the water where your tall plant is growing if at substrate you have 20 par, that's still a low light tank.
For low tech (any tank without injected co2) you generally want low to middling medium light. You can have any level of light with injected co2 so long as you have proper balance.
Some plants require co2 to grow well, all plants will grow faster and better with co2.
To be in a happy place as a beginner you should try to have par at 30-40 throughout your substrate if injecting co2. This will let you grow anything you want with plants.
For fertilizer, if you are going to use an auto doser, look into the pps-pro method of dosing. You buy dry salts, mix them precisely using a gram scale with distilled water, and you have macro and micro fertilizer ready to go. VERY inexpensive per dosage and the dry salts will last you more then a decade. If you are not going to use an auto doser then look into an all in one fertilizer. You are in Canada so you might consider tropica's all in one which I believe is called "specialized". You could also order direct from the source my personal favorite fertilizer "Nicolg Thrive". Either will work fine, just follow directions and dose it after your water change each week.
Speaking of which, you will need to do big water changes each week with usage of these fertilizers. And this is where you run into a crossroads.
Breeding crystal shrimp and ALSO keeping a beautiful aquascaped tank are typically cross purposes. Crystal shrimp are sensitive little guys and they don't like water changes but rather prefer top offs. You can not do this with fertilizer forever though and you will quickly find yourself out of balance. Thus if you are dead set on breeding lots of crystal shrimp, you probably want to reconsider keeping a beautiful aquasaped tank. Most shrimp breeders using a sponge or matten filter, a giant ball of subwassertang, and call it a day.
Alternatively you could keep neocardina shrimp and do as many water changes as you like. Or you could keep the crystals and accept they might not breed for you (btw, they may breed even with water changes, but it makes it more unlikely).
Regarding other conversations, the reason you use ro water for crystal shrimp is that they want low ph and consistent parameters. If your tap water is rock solid and also low ph, you might not need to worry about this. BUT most people don't have perfect water out of the tap.
For plants, if you want low maintenance stay away from carpets and from stems. If you don't mind trimming and replanting every week, or you have an algae issue and you need to soak up nutrients, then stems are fine.
My tanks:
High tech 120P Amazon:
High tech newt tank:
DIY CO2 Shallow Guppy:
Hopefully this is helpful. You may also want to check out the Planted Tank forum which has a lot of information with many ways to solve various problems. Good luck!
