Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate levels at a standstill + Algae Management

[AnxiousVentures]

Hi!

My Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate levels have been at a plateau for the last three days and the tank has started to build up algae. I'm not sure whether I should be doing something to support it or let it do its thing. I'll attach some photos.

Metrics:
https://ibb.co/XjLd898
https://ibb.co/L6j5dyP
https://ibb.co/F7YVzG7

Algae:
https://ibb.co/whkvXx1
https://ibb.co/WNXfwfF
https://ibb.co/N6Tx82P

[Aiken Drum]

You have been cycling your tank for a week? Its too early to see much in the way of progress.

That is a lot of algae growth for such a short time though. How long are your lights left on? Or is the tank sat in direct sunlight?

[AnxiousVentures]

No direct sunlight, I thought I had set the timer for the aquarium lights (at the very least, I meant to) but I just checked to make sure and I have not, so I will do that today.

Do I need to do anything to "control" the algae at this point?

[Aiken Drum]

Not really sure what you mean by control the algae.

6 to 8 hours with the lights on is usually sufficient to keep low demand plants healthy while keeping algae growth to a managable level. Its something you will have to find through trial and error, and you wont see any immediate changes. Change the lighting, see how things are in a couple of weeks, make further adjustments, review again in a couple of weeks etc.

Algae isnt normally a problem, it just looks unsightly.

[AnxiousVentures]

I guess I assumed the algae is something I need to control, but it sounds like I don't need to go scraping/cleaning/intervening with it.

[Aiken Drum]

You might want to manually clean any algae of plant leaves with a toothbrush so they can photosynthesise properly and get an algae scraper to clean the glass so you have a nice clean view into the tank. After that, unless it gets stupidly out of control its just down to personal preference on how much algae you want to see, how much effort you are prepared to do to maintain that level, and how much light you need to keep your plants healthy.