I went back through my notes.
I've got a 20G high and I use ACOOPs light appropriate for that size.
I set the tank up in February and started at lighting intensity 2 (1 up from the lowest setting). I had lots of plants in the tank and in March (1 month in) I increased to intensity 3, the next increase in intensity I made was in May and I went to intensity 4, I also installed a riser I found on Etsy to pull the light away from the lid a bit.
I've been at intensity 4 since. I started out at 6 hours of light a day in February and I'm up to 10 running hours split throughout the day 5 hr on, 4 hr off, 5 hr on.
I dose Easy Green once a week and Easy Iron approximately once a month. The plants really didn't take off and start growing big time until I went to intensity 4 and had the lights on for more than 9 hours.
I've got lots of stem plants and a huge mass of floating water sprite.
TLDR, I brought my lighting up really slow IMO over months. Hope this helps!
I should mention, I went so slow so I could monitor algae. I really don't want to battle that if I can help it. I get some brown diatom (?) stuff on the walls and a little bit of algae here and there but so far it's been manageable.