Newly Set Up 75

[TRAILRIDER]

Hello all. One month ago I set up my 75 with 120# of live sand and later added 80# of "Life Rock".
Twenty years ago in my tanks I had live rock that was collected in Fuji and other places. And I was happy to find something man made that was nice to look at...and useful for a place to grow beneficial bacteria. (Although I can remember how exciting it was to find interesting "things" popping out of the old live rock!) So, now I have no fish except a couple of azure damsels. Yes, I go slow : )

I have been testing the water every other day for a couple of weeks and at this time there is no ammonia, no nitrite and 5.0 ppm nitrate. The PH is steady at 8.3. I have not tested water hardness at this time.
I keep the salinity at 1.023. I only have the lights that came with the tank for now. They are three lines of LEDS, blue and white. The blue lights I have timed to come on at 8 AM to 9 PM, the white lights to come on from 10:30 AM to 8 PM.
Perhaps I have too much light? the wrong quality light (vs. a full spectrum?) Or too little light?

The water quality seems fine and steady but there is some golden tan algae developing on some of the rock. I did the first partial water change a couple of days ago. I changed out about 6-7 gallons of water and gently removed some (not all) of the algae with a clean tooth brush.
What are your comments about this type/color of algae at this stage? Would you make any changes to the lighting? Do you think it is time to safely add a few scavengers to the tank? And lastly, years ago I remember turbo snails being very popular, but I never hear about them nowadays. Ideas?

 

[Coradee]

Giving this a bump up for you

 

[Jesterrace]

Hello all. One month ago I set up my 75 with 120# of live sand and later added 80# of "Life Rock".
Twenty years ago in my tanks I had live rock that was collected in Fuji and other places. And I was happy to find something man made that was nice to look at...and useful for a place to grow beneficial bacteria. (Although I can remember how exciting it was to find interesting "things" popping out of the old live rock!) So, now I have no fish except a couple of azure damsels. Yes, I go slow : )

I have been testing the water every other day for a couple of weeks and at this time there is no ammonia, no nitrite and 5.0 ppm nitrate. The PH is steady at 8.3. I have not tested water hardness at this time.
I keep the salinity at 1.023. I only have the lights that came with the tank for now. They are three lines of LEDS, blue and white. The blue lights I have timed to come on at 8 AM to 9 PM, the white lights to come on from 10:30 AM to 8 PM.
Perhaps I have too much light? the wrong quality light (vs. a full spectrum?) Or too little light?

The water quality seems fine and steady but there is some golden tan algae developing on some of the rock. I did the first partial water change a couple of days ago. I changed out about 6-7 gallons of water and gently removed some (not all) of the algae with a clean tooth brush.
What are your comments about this type/color of algae at this stage? Would you make any changes to the lighting? Do you think it is time to safely add a few scavengers to the tank? And lastly, years ago I remember turbo snails being very popular, but I never hear about them nowadays. Ideas?

Brown algae (aka Diatoms) is the first stage in the algae process, so this is normal. Generally I recommend no more than 8 hours of light of any kind/spectrum or you will create algae problems for yourself in the long run (ie out of control hair algae). So, I would dial back your lighting duration. I would definitely add a cleanup crew (I generally add them before any kind of fish). FYI the Damsels will likely be a problem for new tank mates as they will treat any new addition as a hostile invader, so I hope you have a plan to get them out of your tank.

*EDIT*, I agree on the Life Rock that it is pretty, I have 90lbs of it in my 90 gallon tank: