I'm fairly new to planted tanks too, but in my experience (which is 7 months now lol) I have screwed around with fertilizers, CO2, algae outbreaks, you name it. So far, I have found that you either need a super technical tank with all the bells and whistles, or you need a KISS tank...it seems there's no happy medium. I don't dose ANYTHING to my tank anymore (no CO2 anymore either), and it is doing quite well:
When I tried adding Fluorish Iron or Excel or ferts or CO2, I just got algae. It seems like it's a fine line of a balance between ferts/light/CO2/plant growth. If you want a list of the plants and stuff in my tank, or want to read the journey my tank has taken and what I have learned so far, click on the "10g" in my signature.
Oh and as far as lights go...I have (2) 23w clip on lamps on my tank, and it is too much light. I can only run one light for about 6 hours a day or I get algae. I'm going to change the bulbs to (2) 13w, and see if that will be ok. One more thing...cram as many plants in there as fast as you can so it will out-compete the algae. Algae is your worst enemy. I fought it tooth and nail.