ADVICE BADLY NEEDED!
I was hoping someone could answer me a few questions. I have a 55 gallon saltwater tank that I have had running for a good few months now. it was an established tank when I got it, yet very unkempt! aside from the few fatalities which from what I hear is par for the course, everything has been doing well. I have 3 striped damsels,1 blue damsel, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 red banded shrimp, 1 yellow tang,1 serpant star, 2 clownfish, 2 bubble tipped anemones and some blue legged crabs and snails. oh and live rock and sand 
now my question is this….. everything seems to be going fine and to be honest with you, tersting my own water and adding the marine buffer or the amquel etc. has always worked fine. recently I have started taking water to my local aquatics shop and it seems all of a sudden there are a million probs with my water quality and I seem to be spending tons of money between them claiming I have a lot of phosphates and having me go out and buy 30 gallons of distilled water and doing daily partial changes. I guess this is due to poor tap water quality ( i always used tap water with dechlorinator and saltwater mix) now that hasnt worked and I found myself buying a pack of phosphate remover to put in my fluval 404 canister filter. then I was told a week later I needed to buy 3 more and also a pack of something to remove nitrates. (I guess my standard activated carbon etc. isnt good enough?) then i needed to buy calcium etc. honestly, i wish Id never started getting ym water tested with them because they have me so incredibly uptight now and spending loads of money on a bunch of crap. i spend all day looking to make sure noone in my tank is distressed. everything was going well until I started this stuff with the store1 is it really this difficult?? are they overreacting?? or did I just get waaaayyy above my head this time?
thanks for listening!
Category: AquaticLife
