Algae - suggestions?

[jt325i]

My tank has been running a few months now. All is well but am having some trouble with algae growth. I have an Eclipse System 6 tank (6 gallons) with the following:

fish:

12 neon tetras
1 corydora

plants:

4 Lutea Plants
1 Anubias
1 clump of Java moss

I've had problems with algae growing on the leaves of the lutea & anubias as well as the Java moss. I leave the light on about 8 hours a day now. I have since scaled it back to about 7. I feed the fish a pinch of food a day. I do water changes weekly although the past few days I have changed out a gallon in an attempt to clean up some of the algae. Asides from cutting back on light, food & increasing water changes w/syphoning what else can I do? I am debating adding a few more plants to see if they can suck up extra nutrients. The water chemistry has been holding steady as of late (ph 6.6, GH 170.9ppm, KH 17.9, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, about 5ppm nitrate) Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[OrionGirl]

That's an awful lot of fish for a 6 gallon tank-would be puching it for a 10, IMO.

Since the nitrates are not excessive, it's fair to guess more frequent water changes might not solve anything. I would look into other nutrients that algae can benefit from more than plants--phosphates specifically. Adding CO2, or an additive like Flourish (sp?) might give enough of a boost to the plants to compete. Manual removal of the algae--the affected leaf as well if you can't clean the leaf--frequently until the plants can establish themselves might help.

What lighting do you have? Older bulbs (depends on the type, but generally 6+ months) can shift to a redder spectrum, which will benefit the algae more than the plants, IME.

[jt325i]

I know that is the limit for my tank in terms of fish but the Neons are small as is the Cory & I'm changing out at least a gallon of water a week, syphoning the gravel & figured the live plants would help a bit. I am tempted to just add some more plants until they sap up the extra nutrients the algae seem to thrive on. I did run the light early on for as long as 12 hours but that turned out to be too much. I am going to see if 7-8 hours makes any improvement over the next few months. I'd do C02 injection but on such a small tank am not aware of a device for it.

PS - I should add that eventually some of the Neons will be moved out to a larger 29 or 55 gallon once I get moved & get it established.