Saltwater algea bloom

[StanH]

Help!

Our saltwater aquarium is filled with suspended algea... it is so green that you cannot see the live rock or the back wall.

We set up our Aquarium in early March, starting with a base of crushed coral (2" thick), 5 lbs of LR and started cycling it with 6 damsels... 2 survived. We added some more live rock (fragments) during the cycling. After everything test correctly, except for the Nitrates, we did a partial water change bringing everything down to zero. The tank was crystal clear but did have some algea forming on the glass which was easily cleaned and we had grass growing in the crushed coral. There was also some hair like algea growing on the LR.

We added a blond tang, royal gramma, goby cleaner and an urchin. We were feeding 2x (am and pm) flakes in the am and 1/3 frozen brine shrimp in the pm. The Tang was eating all the grass and we gave him dried sea weed.

Everything seemed to be going great until a week ago. On Friday 4/22 we added about 5 gals of water due to evaporation and went away for the weekend with someone checking in on the fish.

By Sunday afternoon when we returned you could not see to the back of the tank!!!! The lights were not on all the time.

So far we have:
dripped in Kalkwasser
tested Phosphates (0%)
added charcoal to the Eheim cannister filter - we had taken out the original charcoal pad about two weeks before the algea bloom
cleaned the filter- rinsing out the pads and rocks
performed a 50% water change
added a 2nd smaller Eheim cannister filter
siphoned the rocks in the front... afraid to siphon where we can't see
Cleaned everything we could take out of the Aquarium
reduced feeding to 1x per day
turned off lights except for a few hours in the pm

Visited 3 LFS for advice... all of which we have implemented (listed above).

The tank is still green..... what else can we do?!?!

[XXFirefighter]

Is the tank getting sunlight at any point of the day?
As to fix yoru problem now my buddy added a UV filter and in 24 hours it was spotless clean !

[electrikat]

Welcome to AA but I cannot help you . Someone will but I just wanted to welcome you real quick before while you're waiting.

[StanH]

Unfortunately, it does get sunlight as it is in our kitchen/family room. It is on a solid wall, but ther is a window next to it with blinds (kept closed) and sheers... the french door with sheers is on the other side.

What is a UV filter? Is it a type of mechanical filter?

[electrikat]

It is a tube that the water goes through. It has a ultraviolet light inside of it and the uv kills all micro organisms that pass through it. You plumb it inline with one of your filters or with a powerhead and pump water through it at a slow rate of speed. It kills all parasites and algae spores that pass through it to help cut back on ich and algae blooms etc.

[StanH]

Thanks for the welcome!

We've been reading and searching for several days and decided it was time to join and post!

[electrikat]

Do a google search for ultra violet filter or ultra violet sterilizer. They sell them on ebay for very low cost also.

[StanH]

Thanks!

We'll see what we can find... right now I think we need about 100 feather dusters!

This is fun!

[StanH]

The ultra violet sterilzedr arrived and is working hard! We can see ur fish and are definately making progress! THis wekend we will do another partial water change and should be able to be back to normal sometime next week.

Thanks for everyone's help!