I was not joking about the algae cycle. Almost every new tank goes through it, and many will go through it again down the road if things ever get out of whack.
If you have diatoms (brown) you can bet you will get green hair once you have them licked. When the green hair dies off, red slime tends to follow. Oh, it usually takes 6+ months and I have seen a few tanks take over a year to fully clean up so be patient. I would plan on waiting 2+ years to have a beutiful show reef like you see pictures of on this site. A year for the tank to fully mature and a year for the corals to really grow out. You could have great results in half that time or less, but you shouldn't expect to and feel you have failed if you don't. IME Most of the tanks that look great real fast were seeded with rock sand and livestock from established tanks, and a beginner usually doesn't have the established tank to borrow from.
For now, water flow and critters are the best solutions IMHO. I have mostly turbo snails that are now breeding successfully in my 65 gal. I also like to have hermit crabs,little blue legs usually but the scarlets will eat your diatoms. I put both in a new tank within 2 weeks of adding live rock unless amonia is still high. Once amonia drops I add the cleaners and usually a tang or other plant eater or two. I wait longer for corals, but the fish and cleaners seem to handle nitrite and nitrate cycling just fine. If you stay on top of the algae growth you can still maintain corals and have an enjoyable tank during the maturing process.
mfine
