Yah I don't know exactly how it affects the tank when it goes sexual, I just know a guy started a thread on here not long ago about how he tried to keep it in his sump and woke up to a white tank. I'm pretty sure he lost some fish. Hopefully someone else will chime in.
The algae can grow very quickly and be very annoying, I have a bunch of macro algae growing in my nano and i try to keep it trimmed back as much as possible, horrible stuff IMO.