Welcome to Reef Sanctuary and back to this wonderful hobby!
To ward off algae problems, I recommend:
- Using a phosban reactor (two little fishies makes a good one) and using either rowaphos or phosban media (both are iron based). This will help keep the phosphates down.
- Upgrading your skimmer. AquaC Remora pro has a hang on tank style and works great. I use one on my sump. If you have room, you could get the insump ASM G2 skimmer. Utilizing an effective skimmer will remove dissolved organics BEFORE they begin to break down and degrade water quality and feed nusiance algae.
- If you have a sump, create a refugium and grow a macro algae. The macro algae will compete with the nusiance algae for nutrients.
Sand? The "bigger course sand" you refer to will trap ditritus much faster so you will need to keep it vacuumed during water changes. I recommend using a fine aragonite sand... or you could always go BB (bare bottom) like some prefer. I have about a 2.5" aragonite sand bed that has wonderful NNR properties and helps to keep nitrAtes down to 0-5 ppm.
...that is all I can think of right now...
