How to clean tank! Algae...

I think before you start cleaning, it may be a good idea to figure out which algaes you have and what is causing them. If you don't treat them accordingly and get rid of the cause, they will just come right back.

The algae on the glass is likely green dust algae ... you don't want to clean that off because it willl float around in the water column and resettle on the glass. You are better letting it be for 3-4 weeks so it can complete its life cycle, and then scraping it off. It should stay away then.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/algaefinder.php
 
Shading the tank can help too. When the duckweed in my tank gets to be a carpet on the surface, it provides enough shade to deter the algae. But lets the light filter through. I know you have plastic plants, but for the people reading this with real plants: the plants do well for very long periods. Even the green spots and specks on the plants eventually succumb. After the algae is all gone, simply skim off the duckweed and throw it away.
 
Hmm. I'm not a big fan of the magnetic scrapers. Sometimes you can get a really small gravel particle stuck in it and, if you don't notice it in time, you wind up with a tank full of scratched glass.

For starters, how many critters do you have in your tank and how much/often do you feed them?

What kind of filtration do you have for your tank and how often do you clean the filter?

Do you gravelvac? If so, how often?

How often do you change your water and how much at a time?

These are all things you need to look at in order to determine the cause of your algae problem. Once you come to grips with what's going in your tank, you can start to fix the problem.

After you've determined the source(s) of the problem and corrected them, you can start to clean your tank. You'll probably have to remove the decorations and give them a good cleaning with a bleach solution (remembering to dechlorinate them before putting them back in). You will have to scrape the algae off the glass. The scraper on the extender works ok but it's not amazing. The best (and probably the only) way to get rid of the stubborn stuff is with a razor and some elbow grease. If you have algae all over your gravel, you may want to black out the tank for a few days (you don't have plants so you can do it for a little longer than 3 days if need be). After the black out, you'll need to do a heavy gravelvac (they do make longer gravelvac tubes so you can reach the bottom), largish water change and filter cleaning.

After all this work, you should be able to sit back and enjoy your nice clean tank, providing you don't fall back into the bad habits that made it dirty to begin with.
 
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