Best Way To Remove Algae

[big fish little fish]

I've started to get alot of algae on my tank and as we all know it doesn't look that pretty!!
I was going to get a hill stream Loach but I was told that they produce alot of waste and to be truthful I don't really know alot about them
Can anyone tell me what is the best way to control this?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I wouldn't really advise hillstream loaches for algae control as they are really sub tropical fish rather than coldwater or tropical, so if you don't already have one i wouldn't get it partly for this reason- the other reason is although they are not really big waste producers, their natural habitat is very fast flowing mountain streams and things, so in a tank enviroment they need very powerful filtration to supply them with the oxygen they need to survive, they also don't take very well to dried/prepared foods so you may need to ensure they always have fresh algae around for them to thrive. The biggest killer of hillstream loaches in fact is from a long term lack of oxygen not full filling their needs and/or failure to take well to dried/prepared foods.

The best way to get rid of algae though? In my experience its just better to leave the tank lights off for longer periods of time, if the algae is really bad you can leave the tank lights off for a couple of days while doing daily water changes and keeping the tank covered so no light enters it(this will be fine for the fish)- algae cannot survive and thrive very long at all without light, so cutting it off from its regular lights source is often the best way to control and kill it, also a very cheap way of getting rid of it too .
The other method you can do is to simply add lots of live plants to the tank, as algae also does not compete well with aquarium plants for nutrients, but this method is not so successful for getting rid of algae but rather preventing it or controlling it.

If you are interested in keeping hillstream loaches though none the less, this link includes an excellent article for correctly and successfully keeping hillstream loaches;

http/www.loaches.com/hillstream_loaches.html

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[guppy_man]

you could alway try snails or if the algae is on the glass get a MAG-FLOAT which will take all the algae off the glass quite quickly