Fresh Start

Did you leave the filter media intact? If not, the tank will likely cycle again--just something to watch for.

As for algae. There are several things that can cause algae to take over, and regretfully, substrate is seldom on the list. Bleaching the decorations won't help--the algae likely comes in with the water. Certain types, like black beard and hair algae, are often introduced on plants, but the common, green fuzzy stuff is actually in the water source. An abundance of light, and lots of nutrients in the water are the usual problems.

If this is a planted tank, reducing the watts of light may not be advised, but you can limit the light to 8-9 hours per day. Plants don't need more than that. Nutrients are another story. Most commonly, over feeding or over fertilizing is to blame. Over feeding leaves lots of phosphates in addition to the nitrogen source--doesn't help the plants much, but feeds the algae. Fertilization is something that requires a great deal of attention, not only to what is being used, but also to the dosing schedule. And, of course, plants must have CO2 to use the available nutrients, while algae is more oppurtunistic and can thrive without as much CO2.

Before making any suggestions, please indicate how much light you have (watts and hours), what fertilization happens, if there's supplemental CO2, how often are the fish fed, how many fish are there, and how often do you clean the tank?

Oriongirl siad almost all of it. I would just like to add that if you did leave your filters intact, all the bleaching is for naught. Don't worry about the bleach treatment, I did the same thing on my first tank. Use tons of plain dechlorinator(not a product that does other things too) to be safe. Sometimes it just seems like you can't can't enough algae free time to get the plants established and outcompeting the algae. Now, 4 years later, there is algae in there, but I have to try to make it visible. IME, Oriongirl is also right that it is difficult or impossible to keep algae completely out of the tank. You could try by bleaching everything new you put in the tank and using nothing but purified water with a commercial additive to build up the minerals. Although, algae can be carried by fish and I don't think they would be too happy with a bleach treatment.

Yeah djlen is always a big help. He's on here quite a bit during the day. Recently, so am I guess. But, I'm at work so I feel like its OK

Just two things from my experience, I have never had a problem when just N or PO4 go up. It was always when both of them went up, especially in conjunction with high Fe in the water. My advice to anyone starting a tank using a high Fe substrate is do not dose any extra Fe until the tank is balanced out and you think you need it. Just go with whats in Flourish, if thats what liquids you are using. I think part of my problem was how thw tank started. It was a clouded mess from unrinsed Flourite. Big mistake. I'm sure that silt has to be loaded with Fe. So, then I of course started out dosing full amounts of the full Flourish line to the label directions. Probably way too much Fe, and my Hagen Fe test kit is not accurate, three different tests on the same water brought three different readings. I would even be cautious about bring the Nitrate and PO4 levels up to "optimum" levels at first. Just make sure there is some of each for the plants.

Personally, I run my tanks Nitrate limited. I like the way the plants look and it works for me. Most people run their tanks with ample Nitrate and limit the PO4. But, wait till the tank balances out before trying to experiment with this kind of stuff.