Reefers mistakes made when using algae for importing of nutrients and display use.

Many use algae in waters deeper then 10 inches or more, if water is deeper then 8 inches above attachments/roots, the algae will always be sparse and somewhat ineffective at importing so that you can then export by throwing the cuttings of algae away that have absorbed/imported the many coral produced toxins and common nutrients that your algae is handling for your tank.

At best the algae may weaken at the base if lighting can not reach it through what you could call the canopy and break off and float.
Lighting should be close to the water level “but not close enough so that the electrical parts get bubbles bursting water onto your lights” and of course the lights should have diverse imbedded colours, algae lives best in the wild in shallow waters, so copy this!
There should not be a substrate in with the your algae, in that algae there will develop many shedding plankton species and their shells are prone to clogging substrate media, also algae sheds constantly and this will clog that media as well and is one of the best at encouraging hydrogen sulphide via obligate anaerobes.

Mixing commonly used caulerpa algae species of the more dangerous types of caulerpa like taxifolia will create fights amongst them and that will result in adverse excreted caulerpenyne that will slowly harm your corals algae clades species.

24 hour lighting for algae is madness, sooner or later it will go to spore due to the stress of this action, no more then 20 hours and no less then 16 per 24 hour cycle is best.

Caulerpa and with most algae species are of a high calcium content as with magnesium as well, so when you export it you are throwing away these and more, dosing when using algae to import/export is essential!

The more algae the worse your KH and at times PH will be, this has to be watched and kept in check.

The more active and highly functional your bio system is, the more nitrogen it will make available, this will inspire all algae species and to a degree, sicken symbiotic algae species leaving some coral species not doing so well.

All algae function at their best with allowable aquarium temps of temperatures between 22c and 24c.

Algae, whether symbiotic or independent, they all produce oxygen as a bi product that they use some of while lights are on and when lights are off, they use available oxygen in the water and the bi-product is co2, just like everything else.