3 weeks into fish-in cycle... issues

[Parkerbenz]

3 weeks ago, I messed up. I used home depot silicone with mold inhibitors for a sump I was adding to my old 75g tank. Long story short I have moved all of my fish and corals into a 46g bowfront. 60lbs of live sand sold wet in a bag, 50lbs of dry rock. The fish and corals were added as soon as the water was in the tank. I have been dosing 5ml of prime daily. During the first week of cycling, I had slight ammonia readings (less than .05ppm), but no ammonia detected in the past two or so weeks. Also, I have not detected ANY nitrite or nitrate during this entire cycle. In the past week, algae has really started to take off, and in the past 2 days, the water has become very cloudy. I run an aquaclear 110 and a seachem tidal 110 for filtration. I am running matrix and carbon in each filter.

So, to sum it all up: I am 3 weeks into a fish in cycle, with no ammonia, nitrate, or nitrite detected; heavy algae growth, and cloudy water. I have tested my water with tetra strips, API saltwater master kit, and the red sea Marine pro test kit. All kits show the same results, 0ppm no2, no3, nh3/nh4

Fish list (Dont call the tang police!)
1- Yellow tang 5”
3- Ocellaris clowns, 2-3”
1- Canary wrasse 4-5”
2- Yellowtail damselfish
1- Fire shrimp
2- peppermint shrimp
CUC: only about a dozen tiny blue leg hermits plus 2 turbo snails. Just ordered a bunch more to help battle this algae

 

[rkpetersen]

I'd be using a powerful GAC like ROX 0.8 and changing it frequently. I'd also add Purigen to further remove organics.
What's your phosphate? If it's elevated, a phosphate remover like GFO might be useful to help curb algae growth.
What kind of lighting is on the tank? I'd cut back on white, green and red if possible.
More snails, esp algae eaters like turbo and trochus, should help as well.

 

[Parkerbenz]

I'd be using a powerful GAC like ROX 0.8 and changing it frequently. I'd also add Purigen to further remove organics.
What's your phosphate? If it's elevated, a phosphate remover like GFO might be useful to help curb algae growth.
What kind of lighting is on the tank? I'd cut back on white, green and red if possible.
More snails, esp algae eaters like turbo and trochus, should help as well.

My lights are a 32” sbreefs sbox pro timer. Lights have been turned down to the lowest possible power. Just added a bag of purigen. My phosphate test kit is apparently inaccurate, so I will have to take a water sample to a friend with a hanna phosphate checker asap. How often should I change GAC? Ive been using the aquaclear 110 carbon bags, but I will probably need something better. I only have one media reactor so I can only run carbon OR GFO.

 

[rkpetersen]

If I was trying to get rid of a problem, I'd probably change the carbon out every week until the tank was where I wanted it.

 

[lapin]

The cloudy water could be a bacterial bloom. The algae sounds like new tank syndrome. Both might pass with time. Once you know your Po4 number you will know if you need to run GFO. Others have chimed in on the carbon