Algae controlers

I have alot of algae on my glass live rock and sand. yesterday i went to petland(cause my lfs was closed) and they tested the water. he said the nitrates are high and he said either get a tang(yellow) get some snails or do a water change. so then when i went to the lfs a day earlier i didnt test my water but i asked about it and he just showed me some formula i forgot what it was called so i was wonderin besides a fuge turining of the light scrubbing off all the algea starting a whole new tank and keeping live rock in buckets for months what else is there to do. i also started addining iodine and the hair algae even grows more especially in the overflow box megaflow thing that sits in the tank grows alot of algae and i dont have alot of water movment and do water changes every 2 3 weeks and use ro/di water from lfs. so what is their for like dosing to help this along and thnxs

 

You really need to post your water parms, what live stock you have excetra. Im pretty sure you already know the answer to this. Scrub your rocks, scrub your tank, and quit feeding your algae (iodine). There are chemical removers, but you need to be careful if you have live stock. You also need to figure out why your nitrates are high, are you over feeding? over stocked? Other things to think on; Is your tank close to a window? Do you need to increase circulation? How old are your lights? PLZ do not add a tang intill your parms are right, but a good clean up crew would be ok. There is also a good section on algae here you could read.

 

Algae needs phosphate and nitrate..
The first thing I would do is get aggressive with the PO4. Buy a media reactor and some GFO.
Reduce feeding.
Do a series of water changes.
Don't use flake food, drain water off your frozen foods.
Get algae eating clean up crew. A sea hare will mow the algae down like nothing else .. then sell it to someone with algae when he's done. He'll starve otherwise.
Long term you need some sort of nutrient export for nitrates:
Water changes
Refugium(easy..needs a lot of space)
Nitrate coil(too finicky didn't work well for me)
Algae scrubber(slightly tricky... my main export)
Carbon dosing like vodka/sugar(tricky)

Temporary products:
AZNO3
Blue life PO4 remover.

I don't know much about your type of skimmer.