This is a pretty standard issue with any kind of aquarium. It reminds me of something Lou Shiavo from WWC said, it was something along the lines of, If you are not having to clean the glass of your tank daily then your tank is too clean.
There are a few things you can do to help reduce the build up.
First try to keep the nutrient levels in line with nitrates no greater than 5 and phosphates between .03 and .08. Excessive nutrients can and will feed undesirable algae.
Adjust the lighting spectrum and run time. If you are running LED's try reducing the white and green spectrum, as nuisance algae utilize that much more readily than corals.
Also how many hours a day are you running the lights for? 8-10 hours a day is sufficient provided the PAR levels are in the needed range for the types of corals you are keeping.
Dose micro-fauna like live copepods and live phytoplankton to consume and out compete the algae for nutrients. This will add to the tank's bio diversity and help your tank resist issues like a dino outbreak.
Run a refugium with macro algae like chaeto, Ulva, or dragon's breath. Having one setup does multiple things for a reef tank. It provides a place for various types of copepods and amphipods to live and multiply. They will eventually make their way to the display tank where they can provide a sustainable food source for wrasses and mandarin's. The macro algae also assists with absorbing C02 in the water helping to keep the PH up and more stable. The reduced C02 levels also can help inhibit film algae development to some degree.
Lastly is a good cleanup crew to assist with keeping the tank clean. Nerite and Astrea snails are the unsung work horses for this. Reefcleaners.org has an excellent write up on the various types of algae we deal with and what works best on combating it.
Nuisance Algae ID Guide. Red Slime, Cyano, Cyanobacteria. Green Film Algae, Film Algae. Green Hair Algae. Green Turf Algae. Bryopsis pennata and B. plumosa. Bubble Algae, Valonia. Lobophora. Blue Green Cyano.
www.reefcleaners.org
Last thing is invest in a really good glass cleaner like the Flipper Cleaner or something similar.
