High Tech vs Low tech

I like to think of it as there being a number of "approaches" to keeping aquatic plants.

One of those is the "high tech" approach with pressurized CO2, highly specialized aquarium lighting and a high maintenance schedule including: daily (often EI) dosing of fertilizer, weekly water changes of 40-50% and frequent pruning. The goal here is to create the optimum environment for all aquatic plants (even very demanding ones) to thrive. I like to call this "Petal to the metal".

Another approach is a "low tech" tank. Usually these involve finding the delicate "balance" between flora and fauna that helps eliminate much of the maintenance listed above and limits the growth of algae, and using a specifically chosen nutrient rich-substrate and less demanding plants. Water changes are rare and probably feature more top-offs than actual water changes. The goal is to provide a healthy, liveable habitat for both flora and fauna while eliminating as much maintenance as possible.

There are then multiple approaches that fall somewhere in the middle, usually combining principles of the above methods. This is what most aquarists use. Depending where they fall on the gamut of maintenance frequency they might call their approaches "low tech" or "high tech", but really what they mean or should say is "more-high-tech-like" or "more-low-tech-like".