Clean algae or trim the leaves?

I'm battling mild hair algae and diatoms on most surfaces in my tank, including fern and sword leaves. The tank has only been running for 3.5 months and so this is somewhat expected.

I started adding a mild, complete fertilizer recently and it's helping to spur new leaf growth, finally, after everything was just melting for weeks.

Now I've taken other measures (limiting light, raising GH) to help plants out-compete the algae, and it is beginning to help.

For while i tried to clean algae-infected leaves, but now I'm wondering if the plants would prefer to just be exfoliated?

 

That's what I did with crypts, no experience with the plants you have.

 

Cleaning the leaves by hand is a bit laborious. Why not employ some algae eaters?

But, if the leaves are heavily infected with algae, it's best to just remove the leaves.

 

Have you tried using hydrogen peroxide on the algae? I've had pretty decent luck doing that treatment. I would remove any leaves unless they were getting thin discolored or damaged already.

 

I personally just wipe leaves off. I don't get much algae though.