Thank you! My plans were leaning towards slowing down on livestock and doing just as you suggested, now even more so with the great response I’ve had today. Waiting is totally good with me. I’m actually having fun finding daily coral growths with what I have now. I just bought the Red Sea kits and plan to stay with them until they run out, or at least until the aquarium spending heat goes down and my wife quits bird dogging me haha. I leaned towards Red Sea based on what my LFS told me and what I also read on here. I’ll be keeping my numbers in check and gonna try going down to 3 gallon weekly water changes opposed to the 5 I had been doing (LFS suggestion). I really don’t feel like they do it to push a product but I am new to the hobby and a bit naive. I’ve seen them interact with regulars and the service vibe feels the same as when they deal with a noob (me). But I will definitely cross reference all advice through here. Thanks for the words!Welcome to R2R! First advice I would give you is when your budget allows, get some better test kits! Preferably Hanna or 2nd choice Salifert. Next piece of advice, DON'T LISTEN TO YOUR LOCAL FISH STORE! They will tell you anything they want you to hear to get you to buy some new gadget, or magic in a bottle. Get all your advice from this forum.
Also for now hold off on adding any additional livestock. And I don't mean a couple of weeks. Let your bacteria mature for awhile and just try and keep all your water parameters stable. i.e. Alk, Calcuim, Phospahate, Nitrate. As your system matures you will probably see your alk drop.