Algae takeover

[Mickup]

Hello all, just looking for a little bit of guidance on how to fix a situation I am in with my tank. I have a complete and total algae takeover, I went out of town for 6 days a month back and came back to a complete and total green tank. I am doing 10% water changes weekly, trying to get as much as I possibly can off the rock and the sand each time. I do not dose anything as it is a small 35.2g AIO, and has been running for roughly 5 months. It does not look like typical hair algae, but I also am fairly certain that it is algae. It is also hard to tell in the pictures, but the back of the tank, the "sump" section is also overrun with algae. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated, I have found a hard time finding fellow reefers in the NYC area to ask about these types of things.

 

[JTP424]

What type of clean up crew do you have besides the urchin and shrimp?
Is the tank near windows? Do you have lights on for this tank?
Did anyone feed the tank while you were out?

 

[Mickup]

What type of clean up crew do you have besides the urchin and shrimp?
Is the tank near windows? Do you have lights on for this tank?
Did anyone feed the tank while you were out?

The tank is not near any windows at all, In the past 2 weeks I have dramatically reduced the white light to the tank, I do have an 8 hour cycle with the lights on, I have around 7 snails and 3 crabs ( a few have died, I got a second batch it could be a little bit more than this) and nobody fed the tank while I was gone, my old LFS from Florida told me that would be fine.


To be fair, I added the goby and the urchin to the tank today so they have not had nearly enough time to even make a slight impact.

 

[Sophie"s mom]

As others have asked, what CUC do you have?

 

[shakacuz]

@brandon429

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

All your algae is at the bottom where it seems to be no flow area, the top of the tank is completely clear where it seems to be higher flow area. I've never seen it, but that kind of looks like green cyano, another indication of low flow area. I would try to increase the flow along the bottom as a first step.

 

[Mickup]

As others have asked, what CUC do you have?

I have between 7-10 snails, 3-4 crabs, and just put the urchin in there today as well as the cleaner shrimp. That really is it, but leading up to this I only had the 2 clowns in the tank with the cleaner shrimp, just added a firefish and goby today with the urchin.

 

[Mickup]

All your algae is at the bottom where it seems to be no flow area, the top of the tank is completely clear where it seems to be higher flow area. I've never seen it, but that kind of looks like green cyano, another indication of low flow area. I would try to increase the flow along the bottom as a first step.

Thank you so much, I will move my powerhead further down. The only question I have about that is then why would there be this green cyano on the rockwork where I know it is high flow?

 

[Mickup]

All your algae is at the bottom where it seems to be no flow area, the top of the tank is completely clear where it seems to be higher flow area. I've never seen it, but that kind of looks like green cyano, another indication of low flow area. I would try to increase the flow along the bottom as a first step.

Also, do you think I should increase the flow on my MP10 then?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

The green up top looks like a different algae to me, the pic is not clear.

How old is the tank? It looks recently set up, maybe you are going through new tank syndrome?

 

[Mickup]

The green up top looks like a different algae to me, the pic is not clear.

How old is the tank? It looks recently set up, maybe you are going through new tank syndrome?

The tank is 5 months old, so this would make sense. It has been like this for a month now, so I’m hoping the end is in sight. I just ordered a protein skimmer so I’m hoping that will help if there are any excess nutrients.