I think this is the first stage of the uglies. Just ride it out?

[Joe31415]

This is a tank I'm using for quarantining corals. The only thing I have in it are few frags (well, 6 frags) and some copepods. No fish, no CUC. It's a very new tank. It's only been set up for about 2 months, but I did start it with bio-spira and some media from a cycled, but still empty, DT. Over the past two weeks are so, the (dry) rocks, and pretty much every other surface in the tank has started to become covered in, what I assume is, some type of algae. I don't think I have enough of a load in here to warrant any type of CUC. I'm not against getting a snail or crab, I'm just not sure I need it. My question is, is this something I'm better off, more or less, ignoring for the time being?
These pictures were all taken under 'white' light using the "lights on" button on the AI app. It's not normally lit like this.
Also, other than dust/particles coming off the rock, this is a bare bottom tank.

You can see some of the long hairs(?) on the rock. It's hard to see in the pictures, but there's quite a bit of this in the tank as well as something (that doesn't seem to grow like that) on the PVC.




Cyphastrea with more of, what I think is, the same type of algae.


Possible beginnings of coralline or maybe just more algae.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Pull off what you can by hand, reduce white light intensity and assure phosphate is not elevated
Consider also a few snails such as astrea, cerith, nassarius, turbo and nerite

 

[Joe31415]

Pull off what you can by hand, reduce white light intensity and assure phosphate is not elevated
Consider also a few snails such as astrea, cerith, nassarius, turbo and nerite

Phosphates have been pretty steady at .04 since I set it up (or at least since I started checking).
I've keep going back to snails, but I need (or want) something that can right itself, is okay with a bare bottom tank (covered in a thin layer of rock dust) and won't knock everything over. Nothing is glued down and the frag rack I made is light enough* that even the power heads occasionally move it.
And, if it makes a difference, I'm more than happy to over feed to corals, to the benefit of any inverts, or directly feed them with nori or something, but being such a new tank, I'm trying to be careful about spiking ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and/or the inverts running out of food. That's why I was thinking about picking up just one or two snails, not going overboard with 15 or 20.
As far as lowering the whites, I'm still trying to work out how to make changes to the AI schedule. I'm running a preset right now (Saxby? whites top out around 40 or 50), but I'm still learning how to make changes to an entire schedule for a single color as opposed to changing the intesity for the exact moment I choose on the schedule. I need to watch a video instead of blindly poking buttons on the app and seeing what happens. I'll get there.

*I really need to throw a rock on that frag rack before it does actually get knocked over...maybe next time I have my arm in the tank. I didn't realize how buoyant it would be when I made it.