I want algae!!!

[mackmrtn]

So I set up my first saltwater tank 4 weeks ago with some live sand and rock. Added Microbacter7 for 2 weeks. Did a water change. Waited another week and went in to test water and get some fish if it looked good. All was good so I got a few fish. Now the plan is just to continue to let the tank do it’s thing. Guy at my LFS says I need to go through ugly stage before getting coral. My thing is I haven’t seen a lick of algae. Nothing. Is it too soon to really see any?

Ive been still added some of the Microbacter7 every few days. And plan to start feeding more often. I switched my light to be more on whites throughout the day rather than blues. Is this right?

 

[maleks.reef]

You do not HAVE to get an ugly stage, but you will most probably end up getting one. It can be in the form of cyano, diatoms or GHA. It can last a week or ten weeks. The so-called ugly stage is unique to each tank. If you do not keep the lights on for too long, and you feed minimally then you will minimize this stage and instead of a crazy algae bloom, you will experience some normal film algae or something mild of this sort. Do not feed more and do not keep the whites on for longer for the sake of getting algae because you will get it sooner or later and if you give the algae favorable conditions then it will be a pain in the butt to get rid of it once it took over the tank.

Also, you do not need to wait to get corals. Start off with the easy stuff, things like mushrooms, zoas, leathers, etc, softies basically. You can progress from there slowly. I started adding coral as soon as my cycle finished and everything was fine.