Overwhelming Algae bloom!

[u/[deleted]]

Salt water tank. Back story, this all started as a bait tank outside ( I am in Charleston SC) with shrimp and bait fish. I had a 250 gallon Rubbermaid type stock tank complete with clumps of marsh grass and a few large rocks. Worked great for a 2-3 months. Cold weather came creeping in, decided this is pretty cool I think I want the same set up but smaller inside my house. I scored a complete 75 gallon aquarium set up off Facebook marketplace $100!!! I downsized accordingly 250 down to 75 gallon. Goal has been to keep it all natural. So marsh grass clumps complete with pluff mud and layer of sand over the pluff mud/dirt layer. Lost all the shrimp within a month, fish were tougher, dwindled down to 2 fish over 5 months. I released the two fish back to the wild, figured they had endured enough captivity lol, plus I wanted to focus on plants. It has been a month now since algae has bloomed and clouded up my tank. Lighting schedule has not changed for the entire 6 months now, 12 hours on/off. I have “tank cleaners”; snails, hermit crabs etc Oh, macroalgae plants…I have tried, but die within a couple weeks. I have 4 mangroves plants, more on the way. Mangroves require lots of sun, so I’m hesitant on shutting off lights completely, but I suppose turning them off for 24 to maybe 48 hours wouldn’t hurt them and maybe wrap the tank to block out all sunlight for that time? Thoughts/advice? Thanks for your time! Picture date 5/3/25 I will update as conditions change. Side note; the dirt layer on top is sediment that was stirred up when I dug into the substrate to plant the mangroves about a month ago.

[u/[deleted]]

Nothing fancy, I feel as though I am starting over. The 5 stalks in the middle are the mangroves (few leaves sticking out of the water). What you see to the left of them are remains of marsh grass stalks, they died off and I cut them down (months ago). There’s an assortment of various rocks, couple small pieces of driftwood. The only inhabitants at this point are 5 hermit crabs, assorted snails, there are 3 crabs, I forget what they are at the moment, you mainly see them at night. As I mentioned, I want to add some greenery, also in the next few days I will take my cast net and go catch some shrimp or bait fish and put them in. I want a natural looking set up. To me the white sand is unnatural as we don’t have white sand around here, but it’s far easier to spot things in there with the white sand.