Help! Im confussed!!

Question
Hey Todd! Thank you for taking the time to read and help me out with my problem! I have a Bio Cube 14. i have had it now for about a month and a half. everything was fine and going well at first. i have about 3lbs of live rock, about an inch of sand, 3 other rocks, 2 fake plants and happy little fish (a yellow tang, clown fish, and chocolate chip star fish)! My fish seem to be doing great but i have an annoying red/rust color dusting over my sand, on my walls along with a green algae here and there, and its also starting to cover my rocks. i did a 25% water change last week and every other day i wipe the inside of my walls down and mix up the sand to get the red/rust to go away. only to find it there within the next hour. i do a water test once or twice a week and every thing is fine but my nitrate is high. i have a pack i keep in the wet section behind my tank but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. How do i get this to go away? Will it kill my fishies?? also, with the bio cube there are two switches for the light. One that turns of the "light" one that turns of the "blacklight" i only keep the "light" and "blacklight" on when I'm home (probably about 8 hours a day.) and turn only the "light" off when I'm sleeping. i used to turn off both at night but it seemed that when i turned off both my Tiny Clown Fish would start to float to the top and stay there until i turned them back on. What's up with that? Thank you sooo much for your Help! Your Amazing!

Answer
Ash,

You have a couple of small problems concerning the red algae
in your tank.  They have to do with your nutrients and your phosphate.  Doing water changes will help sometimes but it is no cure all.  I have the same problem in my 55 gallon.
To answer your questions:
*  This will not harm your fish.
* Try to cut down on you phosphate level do this by not feeding your fish as much.  Try every other day for a week or two.
* In some cases the blacklight will cause this algae to grow as well. Cut down on that to about 4 hours a day.  
* You system is just a bit out of balance with the high phosphate and nitrate.  Perform 25% water changes with spring water not treated tap water.
* I can not explain the clown's behavior.
* try to get a couple of snails or crabs ( or similar clean-up crews) that will munch on the algae or eat the detritus (waste).
Try to buy some phosphate remover place this in your filter.  They sell pads as well.

Also I have seen small protein skimmers that extract small amounts of dissolved nutrients before to end up in your tank.  Try doctor foster and smith (check them out online) They are not too much. Thats what I added and it helped a bunch


good luck
Todd