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I have finished cycling my 2Og tank and I have an algae problem now. I have one turbo snail but he just hangs out at the water line at the top of my tank. Do I need to do a gravel cleaning or just let it kill it's self off.

It is important to distinguish between brown hairy algae, and red slime algae. If the algae are mostly brown and hairy, it will stop growing when it stops getting food. Try using R/O water for top-offs and water changes, this might help. Also, unless you have some coral that require light (And you shouldn't if your tank is new enough to get algae blooms.) try keeping the lights off for a while.

You can also scrub all of the rocks, scrape the sides and sift the sand to get rid of the brown hairy algae. If on the other hand, you have Red Slime Algae, you have a COMPLETELY different problem that requires a special medicine to kill the red slime algae.

I think the main determinant with respects to the amount of nuisance (or otherwise) algae in reef tanks are the herbivores present. The same prevailing conditions (e.g. lighting, nutrient input, water composition etc.) with different herbivore situations can result in very different algae situations. For example, a moderately loaded tank with tangs and snails might be conducive for coralline algae growth, whereas the same system without the tangs might end up having a significant macro algae cover.

From my experience, snails would graze the hard substrate and consume diatoms and hair algae. Sea cucumbers would clean diatoms off the sand grains, but they seem to avoid sand patches overgrown with cyanobacteria and hair algae. Tangs feed on filamentous algae and macro algae. I have yet to encounter anything that conclusively feeds on cyanobacteria or diatoms.

Congratulations, you've passed "Cycling 101", and you're now advanced to "Introduction to Controlling Algae".... Jokes aside, it's quite natural to have algae growth at this time.

Tell us more about the tank, how old is it, what filtration do you have, what animals, how often do you change water, how deep is your sand substrate, in fact, everything you can tell. Also, do you do any water tests - if so, please give specific values.

With enough information, we could give you more accurate suggestions on what to do....

The tank is a month old, i have a whisper filter from my fresh set-up (with no carbon). I have one three striped damsel and a turbo snail(who is very lazy) I do daily water topoffs and change 2.5 gallons every two weeks, along with some substrate and glass cleaning. My sand is aragonite reef sand at about 2.5 inches in depth. I use supermarket-bottled springwater and Instant Ocean salt. I wish I had a LFS that sold RO water but no can do. I have a 15w regular output halogen bulb, but i want to add two 55w power compacts when I get rid of this phase of algae. I am going to add two or three more turbos today when i get out of work.

Here's another question for you, when doing substrate cleaning is it better (reducing stress) to bag the fish or leave him in the tank?

You shouldn't be cleaning the substrate, period...

You'll kill off bacteria that you need in order to have fish wastes processed and keep nitrate and nitrite levels down, and yes, stress your fish. If it looks bad, the best suggestion I got on this forum was to gently blow a turkey baster with water at the sand, which lifts the detritus so that the protein skimmer picks it up. I've had great results with this.

If you want to begin the cycling process anew, by all means... but I wouldn't recommend it. I know how you're feeling--sand looks bad and you want to do something about it. Get a sea cucumber, or better yet, some peppermint shrimps. Mine didn't just do me a service by eating my aiptasia, they clean every bit of rubble they find, and even pile it in the corners!
One puff of the turkey baster, and it's off to the skimmer.