The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread

[shilala]

Here's a question you guys may be able to help me with...
I'm having another brown algae bloom. Along with that is lots of green hair algae.
I understand it's from phosphorus spiking. My lights are good and they are on a timer and all that good stuff.
Since I've set up this new tank it went from good, to real bad, then back to crystal clear with no algae, and now it's back again.
Something could have very well died in there, I have no way of knowing. It could have been a shrimp or one of any number of snails, or just some other die-back I can't think of. I run two protein skimmers and both have been pulling stuff out doubletime even though I've taken feeding to almost nothing.

Okay, so here is my question...
I usually just let this stuff go. I clean the glass and prefilters regularly, and I run my diatom filter a lot to pull the junk out of the water.
My thinking is that if I let the algae grow, it will pull the phosphate and nitrogen and fertilizers out of the water and fix it in itself. When I clean, I use the diaton filter to pull that organic matter out of the water.
How long should I let things go before I scrub the rocks and stuff?
I've noticed in the past that when the algae starves out it sluffs off in big chunks. Should I just wait till it starts peeling off itself, and how long does that take?
I know it's an odd question, I hope someone can help.
Thanks!!!