Reassurance please

[SmallFry]

So, like others have said, diatoms and algae are normal clean the glass by all means, but don't worry about the rest of it for now.. I also kept the lights on lots in my cycle to keep the coralline going, just means that there'll be that much more hair algae, but the CUC will get rid of that in time.. I also seeded dry rock (30lbs of lace rock with 2lbs of live rock), ti took a good while for the coralline to become established on the dry rock, but with a greater amount of live rock it should happen faster for you.

Once the cycle is complete ie ammonia and nitrite at 0 then a clean up crew will get to work on the algae. Be conservative on the clean up crew - many places advise huge ones, which eat the algae in no time then start to starve. Start off small and build up. There may be a lot of algae right now, but with no fish yet you aren't adding nutrients to the system, so once removed, the algae shouldn't grow back too fast. In my 27 gallon I have 5 banded trochus and 6 cerith I think, plus 2 bumblebees I never see, but are apparently a mixed blessing and a big spiky looking one I can't remember the name of! These keep up no problem with algae from the nutrient output of three fish and a cleaner shrimp that eats like a pig.
The banded trochus were particularly good on the hair algae.

Water changes will reduce the nutrients that are output by the snails as they munch through the algae - the bigger the water change the more nutrient load you remove - though the biggest I ever did was 50%, and that was a smallish tank, so water changes are less expensive in salt etc for me than they will be for you. I don't have an RO unit either, but I found that our local gas station has one and it's about $1.50 for a 5 gal refill of water once you've got the jug. Probably not as pure water as some would advocate, but I feel it's a good compromise..

Hope this is of some reassurance, and sorry if some of it's a bit vague, but I had all 4 wisdom teeth out yesterday and I'm on some serious drugs right now..

Oh and if you haven't already, read Myka's guide on getting rid of hair algae (very helpful).

Rob.