Change Of Substrate Due To Algae?

[Doddsy2006]

Hey everyone. Iv recently just moved into my own house and took my 260L tropical tank with me but I have a problem, I had nowhere in the house to put the tank apart from in the living room about 1m from the window and this is making a lot of algae growth especially on the gravel substrate, the algae is growing around the peices of gravel and looks awful, i have got a 10inch plec in there and a few bristlenose plecs but they dont do much, so my question is this, if I changed my substrate to sand or something else would it reduce the algae and be easier to clean or should I look at algae eating fish?
Cheers any advice is appreciated!

 

[TallTree01]

If there's so much algae that bristlenose can't handle it, it's a big problem. Brisltenose are one of the most effective algae eaters in the hirstory of tropical fish keeping. If you like you could get a clan of cherry or ghost shrimp, I hear they eats algae. I'm most worried about this ten inch Pleco of yours. The chances are it will outgrow your tank. If it was me i would just remove it from the sunlight area or buy curtains for the window behind it.

 

[Lunar Jetman]

You need to sort out the root cause of the algae rather than just replacing the substrate or it will never go away. Sounds like a light problem that you need to sort out.

 

[SLIM]

You need to sort out the root cause of the algae rather than just replacing the substrate or it will never go away. Sounds like a light problem that you need to sort out.

+1 also putting sand in will probably make thing worse as you will more than likely get a bad break out of diatoms. Diatom + sunlight = very bad news. Shade the tank, dont allow any sunlight to fall onto the tank.

 

[Shelster]

Are your water stats ok? They can have an impact too.

 

[CezzaXV]

I agree that it is better to get to the root cause of the problem than just trying to mitigate the effects.
 
Preventing sunlight from getting to the tank would be a massive help. Perhaps you could put a blind on the window (even net curtains would help).