New BC14 cycle and LHA

[crankshaft]

Ok so I've my tank set up for almost a month now and I have a few questions on cycling and adding fish.
The tank was set up for about 2.5 weeks with just water and sand. Last friday I went ahead and got some LR form the LFS and got it all set up. By saturday I notice a small spike in the ammonia and nitrite levels. By sunday they were already starting to fall and now they are at 0 and I'm barely reading any nitates. I have been told my a few on here that have seen my pics posted for IDing that my LR looks like it was already cured and fairly established. If so could this greatly speed up my cycle time? The main reason I ask is the LR I got had some algae growth on it and it is starting to get pretty bad. How much longer should I wait before adding something that would possible get rid of this stuff and what should I look into getting? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
As of right now my tank is at:
PH 8.3
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0-5
All of this was done using an API test kit.
Thanks, Stephen

 

[garick]

If you have no corals or anything in the tank. No lighting over it would help to reduce its growth. What type of algae is it? in salt there are many kinds, some good, some bad.
If you added the LR was it already cycled LR or was it just kept wet at the shop? sometimes you'll see the LR have die off and that will cause ammonia spikes, and sometimes it takes it a while TO die off which can give you a false reading.
In most cases you want to put your Water in, then live rock and after that add your sand.
PS. I'd suggest using egg crate on the bottom of your tank with the sand over it. This will help steady your Live rock and keep it from being dug out and possibly fall over and hurting something.
(Egg crate being that stuff you use in lighting, not the actual EGG crate you get with eggs)
All of these go in together so that the rock can cycle your tank and you'll be ready for fish. Running the tank with sand and water won't really help the process much since it has little to no die off anyhow.

 

[crankshaft]

The LR came out of a large tanks that the LFS holds it in. The shop is a smaller independant on so they don't really go through it quickly. I thought about running the light less but I've gotten about 6 little cup corals, a few broken branches of coral I'm not sure what they are or if they'll come back out or not, and a rather large oyster that I thought was just part of the rock until it started opening, along with a few snails, crabs, featherdusters, starfish, and spagetti worms. Would reducing the light mess with them any? Right now I have the actinic comming on at 7:00, 10k on at 8:00 then off again at 6:00, and the actinic off at 7:00.

 

[crankshaft]

Here's a picture. It's really not that green ( still figuring out the camera I got today), but there is a fair amount of of a green fuzzy 1/4" long aglae growing and its definiatly not getting any better.

Oh and the rock is sitting on the bottom. I dug it up when I placed the LR in. I'm really trying to be patient with this and I'm not so much concerned with getting a fish of whatever in there until it's time, but I just don't want my tank overrun already.

 

[crankshaft]

Any one?
I'm definatly going to hold off longer to put anything in it, but can I decrease the lighting and kill off some of this algea without hurting the corals?