If I were to grow macroalgae inside my display tank (chaeto, calurpa, some others maybe), had a smallish bioload (3-4 fish in a 55 gallon), kept my trace elements up with say SeaLab N.28 blocks, had tons of live rock and sand, a well established biofilter, clean-up crew, copepod population, what else would really be important? I know in nature wave-breaking occurs and exports proteins and other detritus on-shore, and there's really no other way to replicate that other than a protein skimmer no?