Ammonia and nitrite should always read zero in an established tank . After that, stability that is the key . You don't want large swings in your set parameters . Yes, the ranges look good as far as temp, alk, cal . But those are ranges . You want the numbers you set to be stable and not swing from 72 degrees in the morning and 80 degrees in the afternoon. Try to run the tank at your set degrees all the time . Same with the others parameters: alk, you want a constant number only varying a degree here or there . If I test my tank when I get home, alk will be 8.4 , if I test again tomorrow at the same time it will be 8.4 . That's where dosing pumps come in . The idea is that you replace what your tank is consuming at about the same rate its consuming daily, so it keeps things stable and at a constant. Same with calcium , you dose back what your aquarium is consuming . Now depending on what you want to keep depends on what method you may need for stability . You may just need to stay on top of weekly water changes to keep alk and cal where they need to be. You may find adding kalkwasser to your top off water may keep things stable . You can also manually dose your tank . I did that for years before I purchased dosing pumps to do it for me . Every morning I would dose alkalinity than after work when I got home I would dose calcium . Now I have an aquarium controller that doses small amounts throughout the day of each component so my tank is even more stable since there is no spike of alkalinity that I just dumped in to make up for the daily consumption . It is gradually replaced over the course of the entire day. I think I just rambled on there and probably confused you even more ....sorry .
