New Aquarium Setup

We've had a small 300mm cube tank setup now for several weeks. In the last couple of weeks, there has been a persistent green algae bloom that didn't want to back down. Cloudy green water... There was also a strain of green string algae that I could barely control. I had two sword plants in the tank and the string algae would colonize on the leaves of the sword plant, then I would have to cut the swamped leaves off. Needless to say, not a very attractive tank setup. Yesterday I decided it was time to start over. Well, the starting over part turned out to be more than just wholesale cleaning the tank. The plants came out. I replaced the gravel. Scraped the inner walls. Changed out the entire filter (not just the pad). And perhaps the biggest change, there are now neon artificial plants in the tank. In all my years of keeping fish (on and off since high school) I have never had tanks that did not try to replicate natural scenes. I went as cheesy as I could get. La even commented that it was inevitable looking at the trends - inflatable SUPs, boogie boards, thinning down stuff - we've changed our view on life and we have gotten less serious and less conscientious about "stuff". I didn't think our new chapter in life would open up with the regeneration of a small fish tank.