Algae.........already ?

[SoCalReef Newb]

Greetings,

My new FOWLR tank has only been set up for 5 days and I already have the start of brown Algae on the sand bed........is this good or bad?

Here's the set up I did last sunday:

50 gl tank, 25lbs (to start) of fiji live rock, 50 lbs of Caribsea Ocean direct sand, then topped off the system with Catalina water. The system runs through a 20 sump with 3 chambers, 1 for the skimmer, then thru a baffle for air bubbles into a refugium then into the last chamber for the pump and back to the tank. Lighting is a Current T5 set up with only 87 watts - 1 10,000 daylight and 1- Actinic which I thought was going to be barely enough light, but ok for now. Lighting is on about 10 hrs a day, should I have ran no lighting during the cycling??

Any help would be greatly appreciated !!

Thanks

[thegrun]

Keep the lights off during the cycle. You will want to get the rest of your live rock into the tank as soon as possible because you are likely to cause a second cycle when you do add it (you should have at least 50 pounds total of LR). The algae is part of your cycle.

[faze07hd]

i think leaving the light on is ok to promote algae growth. I think its normal for a tank to have some algae growth, just not a lot. Before you start adding some predetor fish, get yourself something to eat up the algae like an urchin or something.