One of these mechanical timers:

http://www.amazon.com/15076-24-Hour-Plug-In-Mechanical-Timer/dp/B002HEY300/

Set it to turn ON an hour after you leave for work. And turn off an hour or so before you get home.

no need to get complicated: https://www.amazon.com/GE-Mechanical-Polarized-Intervals-15076/dp/B002HEY300

If you can lock the massager ON then it should be trivial to wire up a timer switch. Better yet get one of these and just set it for whatever time you want to get up.

I use these for my planted aquariums.

Cheap and easy, and very reliable. The only time they've ever messed up is when my cat walked across it and pushed some of the pegs down.

Also they're analog so if the power ever goes out I know for how long it was out for by how far off the timers are.

Compact Dehumidifier

Timer outlet

Costs about $50, lets you run a dehue on your filaments for a few hours each day to keep the moisture down, and you'll only have to empty it every so often since it's not on constantly.

put it on a timer

You can buy a timer you plug into the wall, that you then plug your lamp into, making the light come on and go off whenever you want even if you're not there. There are a lot, but here's a pretty basic one: https://www.amazon.com/15076-24-Hour-Plug-Mechanical-Timer/dp/B002HEY300/

Yes. Buy a cheap plug timer like this and set it to run during the hours you want to set as "daytime" for your fish. Generally 8 hours or less is advisable to keep down on algae growth, but if you want you can go up to 12.

Ok, I'll tell you what you can do to get a few oz's of shroomy delight for yourself for a measly ~$150.

This is going to be my take on growing, or in other words - pofs' tek. Yea...I like the sound of that. Except it's not going to be very detailed.

Pofs' Tek - A guide for the partially lazy

So, basically, I cut out a few steps - that of making your own substrate and and sterilizing it and prepping a bunch of jars and grain spawn. I use Out-Grow's bulk supplies package which consists of 4 quart jars of sterilized rye grain, and 4 lbs of compost (manure-based substrate) and it costs $35 + shipping which was $15 for me for a total of $50

Then I used a 13.5qt clear bin I bought from amazon made by Iris, which cost $5/ea + $4 shipping (which is a steal in bulk, but you'll only need 1 for this guide) which will cost $9, or $59 total

I did this inside so I used a Timer($7), a Lamp Cord ($9), and a 6500k cfl ($8) for a total of $24 on this part (which can be replaced by sunlight if you have a room with natural lighting) and a total of $83

I used spores from lilshopofspores.com - b+ to be specific. I've switched to thehawkeye.com's spores since, because they are cheaper and come with a lot more spores inside the syringe. You'll run around $15-$30 for spores no matter where you get em and bring the total to $113 assuming $30 for syringe and shipping.

I also bought Polyfill ($7) for a total of $120 bare minimum start price.

And now you have all of the essentials.

I'll write the growing process later.

It turns your lamp (or any electronic device) on/off based on the time of day.

http://www.amazon.com/15076-24-Hour-Plug-In-Mechanical-Timer/dp/B002HEY300/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1418253308&sr=8-3&keywords=lamp+timer

It's a pretty clever device.

A few thoughts:

• Pick up a timer for your light. It'll give the tank a regular light cycle every day of the week without you having to do anything for <$10 (probably cheaper at a local store than Amazon).
  
• A lot of algae means there's a lot of nutrients in the tank your plants are unable to use. In the case of the dwarf baby tears, they probably need more CO2 than is available in the water column; if they don't have enough CO2, it doesn't matter how many other ferts you dose -- CO2 will be a bottleneck for its photosynthesis and it's going to struggle; meanwhile then the algae will happily use those extra ferts. Keeping up your Flourish Excel would help this situation if you didn't want to go all out and inject carbon. IIRC the correct dose for Excel for your size tank would be about 1ml every day. Flourish should only be dosed once or twice a week; I can't speak to Iron. Simply take whatever the recommended dose on the label is and divide it to match your tank. Example: if label says 5 ml per 50 gals; that's 1 ml per 10 gals, or 0.5 ml for 5 gals. I use graduated eyedroppers to dose my nano tanks.
  
• I think your substrate looks fine for plants (because you're not trying to plant in the sand). If it's not a fertilized substrate, consider getting some root tabs like /u/thefishnoob suggested.
  
• The dwarf baby tears also probably needs more light -- consider getting a higher-output fixture, or add a second of the one you already have. (But wait until after you knock down your algae.)
  
• Another tactic when it comes to knocking down algae can be reducing your photoperiod -- again something a timer can come in handy for.

Just DIY the PID ones. Those turn on immediately once it's powered on. Then all you have to do is connect it to something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/15076-24-Hour-Plug-In-Mechanical-Timer/dp/B002HEY300/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1394517371&sr=8-7

Although if you were looking to reduce the cooking time for meals after work, just cook all your portions before hand and refrigerate/freeze it if it's longer term. Then when you get home, throw one of the pre-cooked meals into the water bath. Should only take 20 min or so to reheat back up to temp since it's already cooked.

For pump control first check the draw on the pump. Then start looking for plug in timers that can handle the load. Pump looks pretty small so just about anything will likely work. (better safe!)

If you go cheap, you can probably get a 30 min increment timer like this.

My setup is outdoors so I use something like this, but you could go all out and do this.

Of course if you are techy type, look into an arduino project you can program to the second or based on flow or a float. For inspiration!