Alright, updates. I tested the water earlier in the week a few times and kept getting slightly lower pH readings which, as you can read above, has been worrying me. A lot of people don't worry about a pH of 8, but I'm a worrier. Since I was planning on mixing something into the sand anyways, I opted to use a bit of crushed coral, but a handful at a time so as not to cause a drastic swing. This seems to be working, but I need to take a new test this evening to confirm. I received a small colt coral frag from the LFS for $10 and while Im hesitant to add things while Im still stabilizing here, everything Ive read says they're hardy and actually like a small amount of nitrates in the water. It seems to be doing extremely well. It went from being this tiny deflated sad little thing to looking taller than it did in the LFS's tank. All polyps are fully extended. Nitrates, btw are staying around 10 ppm after a 20% water change last week. I've noticed also, that there are tiny brittle stars living in my rock that come out at night, so that's cool. Finally, this morning I noticed the first signs of some cyanobacteria forming on the glass and on one rock. I peeled it off, but will probably grab some phosphate removing pads next time I stop at the LFS.