opinions vary greatly on that! there is a huge thread in the discussion forum about just how passionate that gets lol this way is only what I would do. I agree thousands of people have let their tank go through various algae phases and come out fine on the other side, the typical uglies phase. My only offer here and there was that we can skip that phase and manually remove so that nothing seeds the tank, or just let natural events ride and things might come about shortly as well.
Regarding cycling my opinion is unique, i do not consider algae part of cycling since they are always optional in a reef system. They literally can only be in a reef where they are allowed, if they are disallowed like I disallow dandelions in my yard, then they cannot appear. The traditional way is the hands off, let things balance way and thats just fine.
My obsession revolves solely around fixing wrecked algae tanks by the thousands over the last several years online, a search of my name + problem algae tank shows how we have to get in and fix tanks that never emerged from the uglies. Thousands did naturally emerge, however, I just work with the troubled mix lol!
Its true that with real 0/0 presence of the major elements at play there'd be no algae, but that rock is emitting it and possibly the low level growth is consuming it from the water column and holding that waste as an organic loading that the free range tests cant detect. <--i rarely agree to that but i think its happening here, can you post a pic
So there are still nutrients, but they are locked in biomass until it decays and re-releases.
Another factor is the high light scenario of a new reef and the white reflective rock bouncing high light and high Po nutrient cycles in the tank...a matured reef is purple and less reflective, and coralline outcompetes algae for vital space, agreed the maturation process w make things easier. I do agree there are fish that would eat it too, this is all a fair mix of experimenting we have to do to find a good way
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