Plant algae control with Africans?

snails and shrimp will be eaten... tried it before but hey it's a nice little change in the diet.
I've also had brown algae on my SA planted cichlid tank. I find large frequent water changes to help. Removes the excess nutrients. Also keep your lights off or severly reduce the amount of time the lights are on for a few days.
Basically, right now there's a war in your tank between algae and plants competing for nutrients. Think of algae as a weed on your lawn. It grows quickly and takes up the nutrients before the grass can get it causing the grass to die. Algae grows fast and will overtake your plants. What you want is for the plants to be the primary consumer of nutrients which ultimatley keeps the amount of algae down.
There are also algae killers that are plant and fish safe. Clouds the water but they do work if you're up for the use of chemicals.
Best of luck!