Well I finally got a phosphate test kit, unfortunately the shades on the card all resemble each other closely, and the hue(if that's the right word here, the colors on the test card are yellow and green, and my water is a light shade of blue)of the water in the actual vile is different than the test card , but I'm pretty sure that I'm reading about 1.0
All the rubber suction cups in my tank always have a prety thick coat of yellowish slime even if I take them off and clean them every week. If I don't scrape my glass at least every two weeks it gets a thick coat of white stuff. My water stays clear as long as no sunlight hits it, though there's always a film on the water that you can only see when the filters are off. This is with no sunlight whatsoever, never running a tank light, and only incandescant lights in the room the tank's in and very little decomposing food, I pretty much only feed a few pellets at a time and then remove whats uneaten, and vaccuum all the gravel thoroughly every week at least. I live in the suburbs of Chicago, I suppose its possible that my water is still having phosphorous added to it to prevent freezing.
All the rubber suction cups in my tank always have a prety thick coat of yellowish slime even if I take them off and clean them every week. If I don't scrape my glass at least every two weeks it gets a thick coat of white stuff. My water stays clear as long as no sunlight hits it, though there's always a film on the water that you can only see when the filters are off. This is with no sunlight whatsoever, never running a tank light, and only incandescant lights in the room the tank's in and very little decomposing food, I pretty much only feed a few pellets at a time and then remove whats uneaten, and vaccuum all the gravel thoroughly every week at least. I live in the suburbs of Chicago, I suppose its possible that my water is still having phosphorous added to it to prevent freezing.