Algae Everywhere!

[xgillian89x]

I have never had any bother with algae in any of my tanks before but in the last week the full tank is green and brown! Dark brown/black furry algae all over the back wall, all the plants, real and fake ones have turned brown and the gravel at the front is bright green. I usually only have my tank lights on for 6 hours a day but cut it down to 3 and it's just getting worse. I have zebra snails and a bn plec but nothing is wanting to eat it. Can anyone advise me what else I could do?

 

[Ch4rlie]

Think its your cutting down on light times thats affecting your plants and causing algae outgrowths.
 
Would turn light back up to 6 hours per day if you had no issues with that previously.

 

[xgillian89x]

No, I cut the hours down to 3 after the algae growth started as I read the algae needs light to grow. Sorry if I worded that wrong in my last post. Never seen so much green and brown in a tank before it looks horrible

 

[Ch4rlie]

Is tank by a window or receives direct sunlight?
 
Increase water flow slightly and increase lights to 7 hours might help, see if any differences.

 

[Lunar Jetman]

Is tank by a window or receives direct sunlight?
 
Increase water flow slightly and increase lights to 7 hours might help, see if any differences.

 
Plus, how often do you change your water/clean your filter? Is the filter working properly? What filter have you got? How big is the tank?

 

[xgillian89x]

No it doesn't get any sunlight at all. I bought the tank around 2 weeks ago, I used the filter media that was used by the previous owner as all the water parameters were good. It cycled within a couple of days. Do a weekly water change, haven't changed any of the filter media yet except from the white sponge. It's a juwel trigon 190 with the standard internal filter it comes with, bioflow 3 I think it's called? Adding my fluval 205 external when I can get someone to help move the tank forwards a bit. The snails are eating all the normal looking algae in the tank but the bright green stuff is growing like a carpet right over the gravel at the front of the tank and no snails are going near it.
Just checked my calendar and I seem to have lost track of dates, I've had it nearly 4 weeks, not 2 weeks.