Once Again I'm At A Loss!

[vtec si]

Some of you here know me and my sps dominated 300 gallon cube that has been up and running for 14 months now. This tank was my up grade from my 180 gallon that was up and running for 7+ years. So most of the 300g tanks coral and fish have been with me quite some time now! My new dilemna started about a month ago! (Hair algae)! So I began to test all water parameters, to find nothing out of norm. Faulty test kits? I thought so, since they where a little old. So I trashed them ALL! I went out and purchased all new Salifert kits. Over $250 worth! Well I tested the water again to find out that I'm getting all the same reading. So what is going on here?

Water parameters.
NH3 0.0
NO2 0.0
NO3 0.01
PO4 0.0
Ca 250 yes I know it low. It always is but I have a new Ca reactor running.
KH 10
Mg 1050
Ph 8.110 new prob
Temp 80.1
Salinity 1.024

Lighting.
New one month old bulbs 400w 12k Coralvue x3
t5 attinics 6 months old x4

Fish. (I have been feeding once a day since Nov' 06)
Purple Tang
Large Vlamingi (sp) tang
Flame angle
Tomato Clown (15years old)
Copper Band Butterfly (5years old)
Royal gramma

Corals.
Too many to list!

So today I ordered 350+ dollars of clean up crews from Live Aquaria and Reef Topia. The only thing is I just do not want to put a band aid on a broken leg. If you catch my drift! I DON'T GET IT!

Any help would be great!
Martin

[kevinpo]

Hi Martin,
Not to panic yet Your test kits are fine it's just that the hair algae is consuming the phosphate just as fast as it is being generated. You can run a phosphate reactor or a phosphate removing media. The Salifert liquid works very well too (if you can get it )

Also I see you have a new calcium reactor. What type of media are you running in it? I had a problem with a bad batch a few years ago that was producing phosphate so the more I dissolved the more hair algae I got

Regards,
Kevin

[vtec si]

I am running a phosban reactor that is why I tested the RO water.

Tha Ca reactor is a Aqumedic brand with there media in it.

Martin

[kevinpo]

Hi Martin,
Collect some water from your calcium reactor output and test it for phosphate just to make sure.

Regards,
Kevin

[blue_eyes53813]

Tangs can be very messy eater.. I started to have the same problem and figured/ or narrowed it down to their messy eating habits and Nori . I was even feeding some flake food. Since I cut back on the greens feeding the algae slowly went away... I also got a sea hare that cleaned it all up..