.. so officially, I've just started BW's liquid fertilisation schedule for only less than a week. Before, I was just adding JBL Ferropol whenever I noticed deficiency symptoms appearing as and when needed. 
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Here are some of my thoughts and suggestions on it...
Since your tank has been running well for the past 6 months, that probably indicates that the lights and overall tank setup is okay.
6+ months is usually the time when most active soil substrates start to deplete their nutrient content for the plant roots (especially if the bio-load has been low and there were no regular fertilizer dosing regimen done), so starting a regular fertilizer dosing schedule can help to supplement the nutrients that the plants need.
There aren't any Co2 injection info on your tank specs, so i assume there is no Co2 injection. If that's the case, then Co2 would be your main limitation in the tank, therefore even with ample lights and fertilizers/nutrients, the plants tend to run out of usable Co2 within a short time and then stop photosynthesizing, that's when algae takes over to use all the extra light and nutrients... which probably explains why the algae in your tank is growing even faster with the increased dosing of fertilizers.
BorneoWild Lush contains all the nutrients (except N and P), while Vivid contains both NPK and micro/trace nutrients... so you may have to be careful when dosing Vivid as it could be adding extra N and P that the plants might not be able to fully utilize due to other limitations (especially in a non-Co2 injected tank).
The increase in plant density and bio-mass over the past few months could also have created a sort of competition for limited resources between the various plants, there will usually be plants which grow better than others with minimal resources, and plants which need extra resources to do well, so its possible the HC is being "out-competed" for the limited Co2 and nutrients by other faster growing plants. Trimming and reducing the mass of the faster growing plants could help balance the plant ratio.
What you could do for nutrient supplementation, rather than dosing fertilizers into the water column, is use fertilizer sticks or tabs instead. Since your HC is rooted, the fertilizer sticks or tabs put directly in the substrate around their root area will feed them directly, so they don't need to compete for nutrients and it also prevents algae from using those nutrients too.
In the meantime while the plants are recovering, for the algae management, try to manually remove as much of the BBA and hair algae as possible. If you keep harassing the algae and removing them, they will gradually find it harder and harder to re-establish. Dosing liquid carbon (ie. Seachem Excel) can help too, do the recommended daily dosing to supplement some extra carbon for the plants, and also use it for spot treatment on areas with remaining BBA and hair algae (the algae should turn white and the shrimps will clear it). You can also try dosing anti-algae products too (ie. AlgExit), it could help as part of the regular tank management to further suppress the algae growth.
Your tank's bio-load is relative low, so you could add more cherry shrimps, perhaps up the number to 20 cherry shrimps (your tank should be able to handle the small increase in shimp bio-load)... the larger numbers will help to eat up the dying algae and any residual new algae that pops up. Get the juvenile shrimps, as their smaller size will enable them to crawl into dense clumps of plants to pick off algae and leftover food.
Hopefully the combination of various things will re-balance your tank, improve the plant growth and keep the algae in check.
Originally Posted by blu3her0
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