Trouble getting back on track.
 

I have a 55 tropical freshwater community
ammonia >.5ppm
nitrate about 1.5 ppm
nitrite >15ppm
PH 7.6
76-78 degrees
Half of the tank heavily planted, other half swimming space, 1'X6"X3" piece of bogwood in corner with filter for shrimp
14 blue neons
9 orange neons
6 golden asian clams
5 otos
4 fancy guppies
2 ghost glass cats
2 bamboo shrimp
1 apple snail
some pond snails

I just set this tank up and about 1 month after finishing cycling I bought a gravel vac (until now was doing daily 2% water changes)

I know I have a habit of over feeding and have since stopped. Now feed once daily.

After vacing for the first time the water was a kind of dirt cloudy and assumed it would clear up as the junk settled, it did not. I assume its from the gravel getting stirred up, but the nitrate levels came up a little (referenced in water parameters on top). I have changed the filters, added fresh carbon, and have purchased freshwater clams.

The water went from the dirt hue to a greenish algae. After getting the clams have held off on my daily 10% water changes and the algae got too thick to see to the back.

Besides cutting back on feeding, is there a natural way to get rid of the stuff (assuming algae) and keep the water clear?

Furthermore for the past 3 days I have been performing 30% daily water changes is this too much? I looked into other posts elsewhere and the general advice was "keep up your aggressive water changes and it should clear up".

Thanks ahead of time for any help given.

You could always do a total blackout for 48 hours (no lights, no feeding, wrap a blanket around the tank to block ambient room lighting) to get rid of the green water, but I would be afraid that your clams would starve to death were you to do this. Freshwater clams are very difficult to keep as they need pretty much a constant supply of green water or something similar and are thus prone to starvation. If they don't get enough to eat, they can die and very quickly foul your water.

oic, so the clams i bought to help are now preventing my cleaning it on pain of death?