What is the best way to rid of algae on the glass?

I have been having the worst algae problems on my glass. It is brown coloring, and i know it's not diatoms, i already had that during the first month and has since gone away. I cannot get the algae to come off the glass. I've tried to use a mag float but for some reason it just scratches up my glass really bad, so i do not like to use it. Instead i have a sonic scrubber and that can't get it off. My ceriths are always working on the glass but the algae just has gotten so bad they don't make a difference. I hate this algaae and it just looks bad and makes pictures turn out unclear because of this brown algae. It's only on the glass and no where else.

Any suggestions? I'm tempted to try the razor blade but i'm afraid of that scratching the tank or the credit card trick which that would take a while

here's a pic, it's all over the glass
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For the really hard stuff I use a razor blade and it works great, it doesn't scratch it either. I use my mag float to clean off the light stuff and I never had a problem with it scratching the glass. The only time it scratches the sand bed is when I go to far down and hit the sand bed and the sand gets in between the float in that case just let it float for a few seconds.

 

so how does the razor blade work, do you just take the razor and start scraping away? And with the mag float i would understand it scratching the tank from grabbing sand from the sandbed, buti don't have it go that low and i have some big scratches on the middle to upper half of my tank which makes me mad because the tank is only 4 months old, the mag float has also scracthed up my puffers 20 gal as well, i don't know why, i guess i just have bad luck with it

 

If your tanks is glass, I would just use the mag-float. That's what I use. In my acrylic tanks, I just make sure I don't have any grains of sand in the cleaner before I scrub. If I do, I just pull the grains of sand off and then clean away.

 

yea the tank is glass, weird thing is though when i did use the mag float, it didn't do anything, this stuff is really hard to get off

 

How long are you leaving your lights on for? Do you use RO/DI water? I would suggest not leaving the lights on for more then 8 hours (FO tank) and would use the RO/DI water to eliminate the minerals that can cause algae blooms. To actually remove if it were glass I would try a razor blade. If Acrylic they sell special pads that work pretty well ( you mentioned the mag float does not work well). Good luck!

 

lights are on for only 7 hours a day it's a reef tank. RO/DI water is used, this tank has not seen tap. And thanks i worry about the algae spreading so i think i will try to scrape the glass with a razor blade on friday when i do my weekly water changes

 

Razors are cheap and easy to use, but you have to get your hands wet and it takes forever if you have a large area to clean. Get one of those metal blade scrapers from your LFS or Marine Depot. They have long handles and are wider, that way you don't get your hands wet and the wider blade will make cleaning a faster job. The edge isn't as sharp as a razor so they wont cut you. They are also stainless steel so they wont rust.. Good Luck!!

 

thanks i'll try to get ahold of some

 

I don't think it's really from your lighting period, you have some excess nutrients in the water. IMO, you will always have some algae build up, but having good water quality keeps it to a minimum. From that pic. it doesn't look bad, it just "looks" bad. What I did was cut a notch in a wooden dowel I had laying around and stuck the razor in the slot and just friction fit it. Works great.