You have a way to just clean this tank and it will be in invader free and it will not recycle
Take time to read this thread. It's full of before and after cleanings. If your tank is too large to redo, to redo the cleaning portion where everything is cloudless vs cloudable, then proceed with other options. But if you run this method, your tank will work great. It needs hand guiding. Cleaning, interruption of the mass gain of the invader and it doesn't look like a huge tank but I thought I'd check
Thread below has all procedural answers, free info to study
The basic summary is right now you have clouding, if you reached in and grabbed sand and dropped it, a massive cloud results. Conversely, if you just reach in and grab rocks and lift one up halfway in the water and shake it, a cloud comes off the rocks. Clouding is both the invader, and the waste it's feeding on
You can't medicate that condition out, but you can simulate a reef storm and clean it out by redoing your install.
If this is too much work then water action options exist on other threads too. None of them have this many actual fixes detailed- the serious will simply make their tank invader free in a day or two and it takes work and it's featured below across many reefs including mine about four different times I took it apart for no reason, just to show infinite cleaning isn't harmful it's good and energizing. Your tank isn't recycling, it handles free ammonia fine. Moving over the clouded condition caused an invader to bloom. Kill it
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https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/page-12
I'm aware everyone avoids the work mode, always a reason why. That link above is a collection of many who didn't avoid it, they truly wanted to be invader free. results posted show a pattern for the willing. It's easy to kill at this stage... lift out those rocks and kill the algae off them such that there is no algae when you put them back in. GFO can be a supporting cause here as well, better to run it when the tank behaves and is fixed without it running, that's not a high bioload tank not even sure it needs GFO. We see trade off invasions commonly with its use. Skimming is good, I would stop GFO and proceed to redo install and if a tiny bit grows back it's far less dense and easily topically removed without another redo.
