I could pick up a RedSea Wavemaker for pretty cheap. I sold mine a couple years back...it does a good job on small tanks. I'm not about to put a Vortech on there, but as far as I know any other controlled powerhead would be too much. Maybe a SCWD on it's own circuit? Can't remember the flow required for a SCWD, but I remember a SCWD cuts down the output of a pump by about 30%. Surge? Hmmm...
I have never tested this tank.
I do weekly 5 gallon water changes using water from my reef. I just redesigned the tank today, removed a bunch of different nuisance algae, and in the process did a 60% water change so testing it now wouldn't tell us much about the past. I don't dose iodine. Seeing as there is a plague-like algae problem I imagine dosing iodine would be like adding fuel to the flames. I put different rock in the tank so this should hugely help with the algae issue.