Im about done!

emerald crabs eat that stuff right up and certain snails

 

Ok, the carbon is a good start, but IMHO you need a skimmer and GFO. The skimmer will remove the organics before they can decay into excess nitrates. The GFO will remove whatever phosphates you may have, without which the algae can not grow.

The suggestion of a refugium is well taken. A refugium contains macro algae which can suck up excess nutrients as it grows. However, your tank is small and has no sump. Therefore, where would you put a large enough refugium to be effective here? It would be unsightly at best, and less efficient than the suggestions I made above.

If you can add a sump, that is ideal. But if not, a hang-on skimmer and a hang-on phosban reactor with GFO (or even a bag of GFO without the reactor) will make a world of difference here.

 

I keep hearing GFO, what exactly is it?

 

Refugium contains a macro algae such as chaeto which is better at getting nutrients than most nuisance algaes which causes the nuisance algaes to starve out. you can put a hang on the back filter on either side of your tank or if it is far enough away from the wall you can put it behind the tank. I would also highly recommend a skimmer rather than a canister filter or any othe sort of filter. much easier to maintain and filters tend to become nitrate factories if your not extremley diligent at maintaining them.

 

Granular Ferric Oxide. It is a chemical that you can buy from any LFS (bulk reef supply sells it for quite cheap in bulk). It absorbs phosphate and binds it, so that algae can not grow. You can use it in a phosban reactor (ideal), or in a filter bag (less ideal, but not terrible).

You need to change it about once a month, (more often in the beginning since your tank obviously has a phosphate excess right now), and it isn't cheap, but it will likely solve this problem for you along with a skimmer.

 

so the uv sterilizer wont work?

 

thanks everyone for your help. Im still not sure what im going to do. I just spent too much money on a UV sterilizer, and dont want to spend another 50 on a gfo if it doesnt work....but thanks

 

return it, you have a nutrient problem, not a bacteria problem.