Most of my tanks have been low tech, and I've found species like Vallisneria, Anbius, and Cryptocorne (low light plants) work best in my situation.
And although sunlight is often frowned upon by aquarists in a general sense, it has always worked for me.
The tank below received southern sun, and used a Home Depot shop light on timer on 6-7 hours per day, no ferts, no CO2.
The tank I have today, is even more low tech, a 180 gal, same height as yours, and it doesn't use any artificial light, just around 3 hours of eastern sun in the morning, and about 2 hours of western sun in the afternoon..
To start plants after the tank was first set up I used a couple root tabs, on a sword plant, but have not added any since.
above, first morning sun. below late morning. Vals left, Hydrilla right (the Hydrilla was grabbed from lake Gatun)
Below late afternoon sun.
Between time, there is some ambient light but very little, and the entire tank looks like the right side of the photo above.
I tried wild Hydrocotyl from Lake Gatun(penny wort) when the tank was first set up, but it couldn't handle the lack of a full days sun.
Maybe if I'd have grabbed it from a shady location.(?) I really like its appearance, so might try again on a new tank in more direct sun.
My substrate is mostly beach sand, that I no longer vac, because the Val has grown so thick, I feed fish sparingly, usually 2 days on, one off, there are 15 from 3-5" cichlids and tetras, one 8" goby.
Filtration is two sump/refugium setup, with one set in full sun to purposely grow copious amounts of algae, the other with a trickle bloc and bio media, and mechanical media.
I like using higher yet, scavenging animals in sumps to help break down organanics to simpler compounds more easily used by plants and algae
Shrimp (in my case) in the sump also eat older spent algae and uneaten fish food , or leaf litter,
Flow has been a 1200 GPH pump (can't remember for sure ?) but at the beginning of Oct I added some some small water lilies, so have significantly throttled back the flow to accommodate them, while new.
Water change schedule is a constant drip, plus extra every day water removal using old water to flush toilets, water garden, and rinse toad feces off the patio. And as you can see, terrestrial plants are used to help reduce nitrates.