Instead of chemical warfare, can you introduce algae eating fish, like plecostomus and otocynclus?

The problem won´t go away if you do not correct the cause, you may use algicide over and over again and the problem will come back, it´s like trying to cover the sun with a finger.

The cause of algae blooms is: too much light and too much free nitrogen in your tank. Light can be corrected by shading the place where the tank is located or by reducing the hours of light ( by turning off the lamp ), free nitrogen on the other hand is a little bit more tricky, the most common causes if increased nitrogen levels are: to many animals ( a large biomass ) or too much food, food that decomposes and turns into ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Reducing the biomass, increasing water changes and reducing the ammount of food restores the balance to the system. You need to use both approaches, reducing the light levels and reducing the ammount of free nitrogen, that way the algae will not have two of the elements it needs in order to grow.

Do a 1/4 to 1/2 water change, dont put chemicals in your tank. I would then buy some hygrophilia deformis and other fast growing plants. They will suck alot of the nitrogen out of the water once they start to root. It might take about a week. If you do go with real plants, make sure you have the lighting for them.

I had an algea bloom a month ago, this was after I trimmed back my plants big time. Once the plants bounced back, the algea slowly went away. The algea does not hurt the fish.
Good luck.

Algae blooms can be a problem, in people´s mind the cosmetics are important, the algae won´t hurt the fish but it can clog the filter system and then hurt the fish. Let´s remember that a tank is a contained ecosystem but in order to be functional that ecosystem depends on outside influences and that it depends on technology developed for that purpose, if the technology fails the system collapses.

Algicide is not the answer, water quality control is.

I think a combimation of plants to defray the light / Nitrogen and algae eating fish, along with scraping the glass, would take care of the bulk of the problem.

Thanks everyone...no algacide. I'll just pursue the measures you've suggested here. I'll post another question and look forward to more input.

It may well come down to water quality when it comes to controlling algae. As stated earlier, it is likely that you have an excess of nitrogen. I had an algae bloom back in mid September/October and dealt with it by adding additional stem plants as well as feeding less. Within a month everything was cleared up. The additional plants compete with the algae for nitrogen.

Hi
I was the Algae King when I lived in Long Island NY it was due to the fact that my tapwater contained high amounts of phosphates and thus algae was being fed .
Water change after water change only fed it . I bought an inexpensive Tapwater purifier used for fishtanks .
The algae after a few weeks and water changes went away . The water I have now is great and I grow what I couldnt before but either way check your phosphate level in your tapwater.
Some old lead pipe type places use phosphate to "cover" the inside of the pipes so lead wont leach into the water .If its your tapwater its easy to remedy with an RO unit or again the cheap tapwater purifier worked great for me .

Louie...does this mean that I should test my tap?

Of course you should test your tap water. Ph, DH ( general hardness ), KH ( carbonate hardness ), NO3s ( nitrates ), PO4s ( phosphates ) are important parameters for successful fish keeping.