Algae cycle?

[edolan]

Hello I am fairly new to reef keeping. My wife and I started with a 36 gallon Fluval M90 all in one tank that we got a good deal on. This tank has just hit the 4 month mark. We have a Fluval Marine and Reef led with a Ramp Timer Pro controller. I have the lights on for about 8 hours at about 25%. No corals yet but I have some in quarantine that I hope to add soon. We have only used RO water in this tank and I do a 10% water change weekly with Red Sea Coral Pro salt which I feel as really helped to give me good mag, alk and cal levels. I am also running carbon and gfo in a media bag in the sump.

My question is about the different algae cycles that tanks go through as they become more stable. We have gone through diatoms which the clean up crew handled fairly quickly and for about the last 2 months we have been getting some kind of green algae. I will post some pics. I am wondering if this is fairly normal for this stage of a tank that has been running for 4 months or if there is some other else I should be looking for to get this algae in check.

Also I would like to get some coralline algae growth. I have a few snails that have coralline on their shells and was hoping for it to spread.

Our water parameters are:
Specific gravity 1.025
Temp 76
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
Mag 1360
Alk 9
Cal 420

Any advice is appreciated if there is something I should do or look for or do I just need to be patient. Thanks.
Please forgive the fake anenome. My wife wanted it until we get some coral in the tank.

 

[edolan]

I forgot to mention I have a fluval protein skimmer running twelve hours a day. It is too loud to leave running in the evening. I only have four fish. Two clown fish, a yellow clown goby and a chromis that I feed twice a day. Is the green algae a normal part of a reef tank or should it evetually run its course and completely disappear?

 

[pyithar]

it's normal for new tanks to go through stages of algae. keep up with the regular maintenance schedules and try to keep the parameters in check. coralline algae will come eventually. you can manually remove the algae during water changes. don't let the nutrients get too high. it's better to run skimmer 24/7.