Originally posted by mjhulik
I have great water, only 12 gallon tank though, all live rock and live sand, I have two Percila clowns and a brittle star, and a normal starfish brownish in color, one turbo snail, emarld crab and about 5 sand snails and thats it. I just didn't know if the algea would harm the rest of the tank or not
Algea will not only not harm the tank but improve the water quality. Like all plant life it consumes ammonia, nitrAtes, phosphates, and carbon dioxide. And in the process filter out toxins and even heavy metals. Just that, unlike macros or plants, you can not harvest the algae to export the toxins and heavy metals.
So again it just depends on how you think it looks. If you think it looks acceptable then i would just leave it in there. eventually it will build up to some level and just remain at the level. meanwhile nitrates and phosphates will be very low to 0.0.