Think some people have used bonsai akadama with some success. There are methods of making substrate yourself as well, using compost/garden soil.

Few questions: what kind of plants do you have, what's their growth like, what's your filtration like and what kind of algae do you have? I'd also consider reducing your lighting period down for a bit, increasing it again once the algae is under control.

ah! In that case, just clean tap water will be fine.

Tap water will be fine. You're soaking for several reasons, including to waterlog it, so it'll sink. Soaking will also remove tanins. Tanins can be beneficial to some setups and fish, especially if you're after a 'black water' type biotope. However if you don't want tanins then change the water every so often until all the tannins have leached out. How long you leave it depends on the wood. Some takes ages others a few days.

You mention live wood in the post title. Ideally wood should be dry and dead in order to use safely. Green wood still has sap and organics in it which can play havoc with your water parameters.

Lots of other options for you including hemianthus callicthroides 'Cuba', eleocharis parvula (hairgrass) are two options. You can also used various mosses including java, which will grow in a wide variety of conditions, but are slower growing.

Most hardwoods are fine, but avoid softwoods. Just ensure they're not green wood. Oak and beech are fine and some people have used heather very succesfully. Avoid any old bits that have fungus or mould on. Wood is best left to dry, either in a wood store or artificially in an oven As suggested already by fishlady.

Then strip the bark off and soak the wood. Time soaking will depend on the wood itself. Some will sink in a few days and leach little tannins. Others will take longer. Some people boil the wood to speed up this process.

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Yep, streaks in the fins can indicate high ammonia/nitrites especially when in conjunction with lethargy and heavy breathing. Given the water parameters you've given nitrite seems to be the culprit. Keep up with water changes. Fin rot is a bacterial infection when the fins appear ragged and offer red around the damaged parts.

Cory eggs then I reckon!

What do you have in your tank? Look like nerite snail eggs to me at first glance.

Most of your questions have already been answered but just to highlight how you don't have to change the fine and course sponges as recommended by the manufacture:

I have run a juwel standard filter in a rio 240 for 6 years and have never replaced the sponges (apart from the white prefilter)! I simply rinse the mulm (dirt/muck) out of the sponges in old tank water, alternating sponges at each water change. The tanks going to be rescaled following a move in October and I'm going to restart from scratch for several reasons, but I suspect the sponges have many more years in them otherwise. I'll be trying out the Cirax next time.

Many manufactures will advocate replacing items often as it makes good business sense for them! , but not necessarily you the customer