Holy Freakin' Algae!!!!

[Kimlafeiet]

Is this Diatom algae? How do I get rid of it?

Tank stats: 20g newly planted (about a month ago). PFS substrate and mopani driftwood. Stock hood with 2 daylight 10w bulbs, 5000k each. Timer on from 11am to 8pm daily. Aquaclear 30 filter. Temp 78.

Plants: Anubias, windelov java fern, long leaf java fern, bacopa caroliniana, crypt, amazon sword and hornwort. Dosing flourish weekly with root tabs in substrate. No c02. Ordered excel, but its not here yet.

Fish: 6 neon tetras, 1 baby angel (not a permanent resident, lol) 3 ghost shrimp and 1 mystery snail.

Problem: I have been noticing this brown algae for about a week now. It started on the leaves of the anubias and crypt, and has since spread to the rocks, and starting to pop up on the glass and sandbed. The tank is about 6 months old, but was newly turned into a planted tank (added all plants above and driftwood, as well as swapped out substrate from gravel to pfs). I have not ever seen or had a problem with algea before when it was all fake plants. Wondering if it is the plants that are causing it, and how to control it. Could it be the substate? It is pool filter sand, which I think is a silica sand. Also, the crypt is totally covered in it. The only plants that seem to be thriving are the bacopa, hornwort, and sword is shotting up new leaves (although the original leaves are dying off). The windelov java looks fine, but the long leaf java is looking sad with black spots all over it, anubias has algae, and crypt appeared to be growing at first, but is now not, and is totally covered in the algae.

Suggestions on what to do would be great, tank is starting to look like crap and I am getting discouraged about doing real plants.

Pics to follow in just a moment.

 

[Kimlafeiet]

Here are some pics. Sorry they are upside down and sideways. Crazy phone.
The rock in the pic usedto be white.......and the sword leaf is obviously dying. Should I just cut it off? There are lots of little ones growing up now from the sand

 

[Kimlafeiet]

Anyone? Just need to know what typeof algae this is so I can figure out how to remove it.

 

[bud29]

It does definitely look like diatoms. They are common in new tanks, but they will go away eventually. They ARE pretty unsightly, but the good news is they are easily detached, so if you take an algae scrubbing pad to the spots, they should come right off.

Diatoms do feed off of silicates, so the new pool filter is likely to blame, not the plants. However, once they eat up all the silicates they can find, they should go away. If they DON'T go away, high nitrates and/or phosphates are likely to blame. Seachem makes a product called PhosGuard if you do decide high phosphates are the issue.