Must use CO2 becomes an issue at higher lighting values ti have a long
term success.

Most of the failures with folks using CO2 stem from not enough CO2 and
not having a routine to make sure the plants have enough nutrients.

At 1w/gal you can still use CO2 and have excellent result, but it's
not required by any stretch.

Now when you you say you use the whole SeaChem line, does this include
Excel? While not being CO2, you would be adding Carbon enrichment to
the tank and ampliying the growth rates a fair amount.

Despite being told that I must have CO2, and that the entire Flourish line
would be way too expensive- Flourish is the route I have chosen.
I am dosing as per Seachem's chart.
Things are going exceedingly well- each and every plant has grown *way*
beyond my expectations. After only one month I am having to prune nearly
weekly just to keep things neat.

As of yet I have no algae- none.

Well at 1w/gal, adding plenty of plants from the start, (perhaps)
using Excel, it would not surprise me.

Too many folks think more light is better. This is simply not true.

In fact- I have no algae to the point that I am beginning to worry about my
algae eating friends. Of course I supplement them with veggies and algae
wafers, but feel that a bit of real algae would be nice for them.
I keep reading about everyones trials with algae and am wondering how long
until the plague hits me?
Is it possible that I have somehow hit on a light/nutrient balance already?
Or am I feeling successful a bit too soon?

No, but if you really are after the low tech method, Idon't add
anything except fish food and top off for evaporation in my non CO2
tanks. I don't use Excel. I suppose your tank would be high tech from
that perspective:-)
Then again, that pond out back would make mind look somewhat high
tech.

It all gets down to your goal of what you want out of it.
Using CO2 is not about speed of growth for me but rather quality.
The species of plants I tend to keep do much better with CO2. But the
list you have will all do well without it.

If you keep upon pruning and keep consistent dosing/water change
routines etc, you should do fine.

Light intensity is very much like driving speeds, 1w/g is like 20mph,
5 w/g is like 80mph. If anything goes wrong, any bumps in the road,
the result from this are much worse. You have more flexibilty at lower
wattages.

People have been told that they need more light and more light is
better and PC lighting allows them to easily put loads of light on
their tanks.

Folks are willing to buy 200$ in light but will not pay for CO2.
We really should see folks telling newbies that high light is not
required, not the CO2 part. That's where many get into trouble. Then
they ask how to solve things and with that much light.....CO2 is the
only way to meet the carbon demands of the system or sell/return the
lights. Many won't reduce the light wattages. Then they try and find a
way around using CO2 at high lighting.

I'll tell you this, my dosing and CO2 routine, so called high tech is
as easy as yours with the SeaChem products. If you dose 2-3x a week I
got you beat. My CO2 require little upkeep and is around 8-15$ a year
to run 160 gal worth of tank. Fert's run about 10$ a year, less if I
used Plantex only, around 4$ a year then. So for about 20$ a year, I
run this so called high tech tank.

I'm not trying to convince you to use CO2, far from it, but I am
pointing out it's not difficult to do nor that much work as many would
have you believe.

Regards,
Tom Barr