I don't actually test my water with kits, I usually just let the clarity of the water, the colour of my fish and their appetites, be the judge of the water conditions.
my pH is currently at 7.0
What is throughly odd to me is that our filters might be containing way to much media to begin with, and the misleading ideas that more fish means more filtration. I think that it is possible that we have actually too much filter media for our tanks here in singapore, since more never seems to hurt, we might actually go into overkill with the media and then convince ourselves we need more each time we add fish.
I think there is a logical balance to the amount of media we actually need and we actually want to see.
After all, a huge filtration system puts your mind to rest as the water is not so much filtered, as it is purified