to me it looks like you don't have all that much live rock in your system...how many pounds do you have in it....I know this varies greatly depending on porosity of the rock but if you don't have enough in your system you will not have enough bacteria to break down organics. Over time couldn't this leed to huge algae issues as well
chime in more learned members cause i am a newb and could be full of crap.:biggrin:

this is my fuge light reflector
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z...c/IMG_2813.jpg

maybe ill try IO at 39.95 vs 79.95 i figure even after dosing anything thats low will still be half the price of the H20

i didnt realize seachem wasnt a "good" salt
i only used it because i had planted tanks before i got into salt and was very happy with all their planted tank products

ill try switching when i finish off the bucket i bought 4 days ago..............

is there any special way to switch should i mix the 2 salts together for a few water changes.............i see the plus side to that but also seems to spell trouble.............

Once you get an acurrate reading for mg punch it up to between 1500 and 1600 ppm. Hair hates mg.

i filled the tank a year ago this month it finished cycling around xmas

bulbs are less than a month old

the rock is quite heavy i would guess atleast bare minimum 135-140 pounds and another 10 or so in the sump

I wouldn't say there are "bad" salts, but personally I dislike both Seachem and Kent (and a couple others) just because they are a pain in the butt. Some people like to keep their calcium high, so Seachem would be great for them (although I can't reason with keeping calcium that high lol).

I have worked my fair share of retail LFS jobs, and I can tell you that Seachem doesn't sell very well. If it was that great it would be more popular.

When changing salts you should mix them. I have always just done:

Water change 1 (assuming 15% water changes): 100% Old salt
#2: 75% old, 25% new
#3: 50/50
#4: 75% new, 25% old
#5: 100% new

If you're doing big water changes, like 25-50% you should change the salt slower since you will be introducing a larger amount at a time. Make sense?

I use the same fuge reflector. I have used the same bulb you have except I used the 23w version. How big is the fuge anyway?

I am on my second pail of Seachem Reef salt and have no hair algae problems but I also have a Lawnmower Blenny who does an excellent job keeping things clean. It also eats pellet food which is good as there is no visible algae left in my tank anymore. They are not the prettiest fish but they do have a lot of personality and will sit on the rocks and stare at you for hours. (A bit creepy)

Raising magnesium won't work for the hair algae you have, that only works for Bryopsis which is a specie of hair algae, but not the one you have.

thanks for all the advice everyone

the fuge holds about 8 G of water

Seachem salt will often cause inaccurate kh readings because of the high levels of borate. Most test kits read the combined total of borate hardness and carbonate hardness giving a higher reading than what the actually carbonate hardness is. When I used the seachem test kit and subtracted the borate I found that my actual carbonate hardness was about 2 dkh lower. So your kh is probably a lot lower then your already low reading.

Algae
 

Been there, that is pretty much how I inherited my first tank. I use to wash the rocks off in the sink with a toothbrush and the water change water. Got 20-30 crabs a lawnmower blennie etc. The thing that went through the most algae though was when I got a yellow tang. He literally ate off a rock a a day. took him less than a month and he emptied out my tank and started on the pulsing zenia.