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phosphorus/phosphates, black brush (hairy) algae

i had inquired about eliminating this pest from one of my tanks.  it dawned 
on me that it is the only tank that has this problem and it is also my only 
tank that has a large chunk of driftwood.  i had thought, maybe taht is the 
problem.  some of you wrote back to say it probably is not the source of 
excess phosphates.  

i don't use CO2 injection.  it is a low-tech tank, as all of mine are.  from 
what roger and others have posted, i can see that there are some problems: 
our water is soft and acidic, the tank used to have a forest of java fern 
growing on this piece of wood, now it's been mostly decimated by the BBA.  
the other plants in the tank are 3 huge swords.  recently it is being 
overtaken by giant vals (there are at least 6 of them), a large Cryp. 
balansae and a Nymphaea, al recent additions.  it has had a large explosion 
of water lettuce, which has now gone through some decline.  i don't test my 
water, although a friend had taken a sample home and tested and it came out 
that it was overloaded with phosphates.  he gave me some phosguard to use and 
it doesn't seem to have made a dent in the problem. 

i'm still puzzled as to why it only happens in this tank.  i'll reduce 
feeding (although i generally feed all my tanks 5-6 times a WEEK).  i tend to 
think i don't overfeed them.  i'm puzzled as to why the explosive growth of 
the vals have not cut down on the BBA.  my amazon swords used to grow a lot 
and even bloomed and produced plantlets.  now they are just huge and don't 
grow much bigger, although their plantlets have not reached the mother 
plant's proportions.   this tank produces a lot of plant waste, as the plants 
shed lots of parts taht are attacked by the algae, and it's an uphill battle 
to keep it clean.  i know that this rotting vegetation only adds to the 
problem.

i have also noticed that the areas in the tank that are darker tend to have 
less of a problem, so light obviously does benefit the algae.

tsuh yang chen, nyc, USA