Brown algae?

[smarch]

I have a 10 gal aquarium. I've had it planted for a few months now with a variety of plants, it has dessert bend sand as the substrate, I have a nice piece of driftwood as the centerpiece, and a lovely crowntail male betta named Svyatoslav. I have the UV lights for plants (thanks to my tortoise experience knowing I needed them!) Also have a 20gal tetra filter hooked in (used to need the filtration power for my goldie), and an airstone. Also heated to around 75-80 with a 10watt heater. Any info I haven't given I can, I think I covered most of it.

But recently I've been fighting brown algae that's been taking over, its been killing a few of my smaller plants and is spotting up in the sand. I'm not even sure whats causing it, so if anyone knows reasons i'd be glad to know why.
I have Tetra-algae clear I got a while back but haven't used yet. I'm nervous to use it with the plants, and I'm also trying to be very careful what treatments I put in my tank due to planning to get a few ghost shrimp in the future and all invertebrates are sensitive to certain medications, so i'm trying to keep the water safe for them too.
Currently ive been doing water changes and trying to suck up and scrub off all the algae I can, but it seems to come back worse after each cleaning! Know any better ways to fight it, and treatments that are safe for invertebrates?

 

[StarSapphire22]

Sounds like diatoms. Algae remover won't help. It pops up in newer tanks and tanks with lots of light. I would decrease your lighting by a couple hours/day, make sure it's not near windows/sunlight, and throw in a mystery snail or two. Mostly though, to remove it you're just gonna have to use an aquarium safe sponge and good old elbow grease.

 

[smarch]

Sounds like diatoms. Algae remover won't help. It pops up in newer tanks and tanks with lots of light. I would decrease your lighting by a couple hours/day, make sure it's not near windows/sunlight, and throw in a mystery snail or two. Mostly though, to remove it you're just gonna have to use an aquarium safe sponge and good old elbow grease.

Well it comes up really easy when I scrub, and I have an aquarium sponge thing on the handle so a safe sponge is all good. I've also been kinda bad at lighting since its in my room and I share a room and it being summer I'm awake and at work while she's asleep... and no one turns it on no matter how much I ask -_-
I was initially wondering about snails and decided on shrimp to not kill my plants. So I know my stuff on snails, I'll go out and get some soon, I'll just have to get water hardener (reverse osmosis=removes everything from water...)
And ok I guess its good I didn't use my algae remover since it wouldn't have worked anyways.