As the new year rolls in, I have completely redone my 220 gallon planted tank. I was battling some algae problems for years (especially the brown algae) which I couldn't get rid of no matter what I tried. So, I ended up removing all the plants, cleaning everything out carefully and replanting the whole tank.
As it is right now, I have very few plants that I bought at LFSs during boxing sale and I'm looking to densely plant the tank as soon as possible (I have high light with CO2). So the faster I can put plants in it, the lower the chances of getting unwanted algae back. Eventually as the setup matures I'll keep replacing plants that do not fit well into aquascape with better candidates as I find/obtain them.
P.S. Here is how the tank looks now (attached). It is EMPTY... :)
I would also add faster growing stem plants like hygrophila to use up excess nutrients, as well as slower growing plant like anubias etc, and plant it very heavily. Algae has a harder time when it has to compete with fast growing plants for nutrients.
Wow nice size! Something fast-growing for now is a great idea indeed. Then you can search for plants you actually want, in the meantime.
Yes, that's the plan. I have a few stems of Hygrophila polysperma I was able to salvage from my previous setup, which does grow very quickly, but I could use more stems and slower growing plants as well.
Limnophila Sessiliflora is nice , tall and grows fast as well. Java fern clumps will look awesome too and dont grow too fast. With Highlight and co2 though, the possibilities are endless :)