So, first I should make a confession - I have been seriously neglecting my tank. My plants and fish are all flourishing though, so I guess I didn't do anything too bad. The issue, however, is that my algae is flourishing too. My tank is at home while I am in college (the dorm makes you unplug ALL appliances over every break and I don't want to unplug my tank for fall break, christmas break, spring break, etc) and so I rarely have time to do much more than general maintenance. I haven't messed with the plants, scraped the glass, etc. Nothing except water changes and topoffs and my mom feeds the fish when I am away.

From this semi-neglect...

I have enough java moss to take over the world.
The algae was so thick on the glass, I thought the hood-light had burned out....it turns out that I just couldn't see past the algae

My issue with the algae isn't the glass though, it's the other plants. A few of my live plants have algae carpets on their leaves. It's thick green algae that coats everything - not brown or hair algae. Just a ton of healthy, thick, green algae. It's so thick it looks kind of like a carpet of moss. I don't want it killing my live plants - how do I get it off the leaves without damaging the plants? I just did a large water-change and vacuumed the gravel extensively - I assume getting rid of all that gunk will cut down on available nutrients. Any other suggestions?

Oh, by the way, it's a 10gal tank with 3 guppies and 2 other guppy-sized fish. Nothing else but live plants. They are fed sparingly.

Hey FF, what's the lighting situation on this tank? How long are the lights on every day? I control algae by scraping the glass, and by having the lights on a timer. I use strong compact fluorescent lights on some tanks and only have to put them on for 8 hours a day. Any more than that and the algae gets bad.

You could try limiting the amount of light and see if that does it.... Chance are that you won't effect the plants, just the algae.

Oh, sorry....school took over my life for a while. I've resurfaced for the moment...

Stock lighting (so really low wattage)
I am not the one who does the lights (since I am not there) but I assume they stay on all day.

I'll check on the algae situation if I go home again soon.

I would say get a brig or a timer to control lighting.

You could invest in a SAE or some kind of algae eater my SAE cleaned my whole tank in a night, loves the algae.

The lights could be turned off during the day when there is other light in the room. That really will do the trick on the algae.