I keep a few tropical tanks running, 2 4ft'ers, a 2ft for the rainbow crabs & another 2ft breeding tank. We've kept convict cichlids for the past couple of years & they breed like mad.
For your algae issue i'd recommend maybe introducing a few proportianately sized plecos to your tanks. They do a great job of keeping the algae down, just make sure you feed them some sinking pellets occasionally.