If you're asking about the acid, yes, perfect. About the test strips, no, junk.
Buy at least five gallons. Virtually no amount will go unused. You'll be using a lot of acid for the first year, and you'll very likely be using acid forever. It lasts a long time, so you don't have to worry about it getting old. Don't store it in your garage, or around anything metal. I store mine outside in an all plastic Suncast deck box. MA will attack anything metal and corrode it very quickly. DO NOT store your MA in the same bin as your chlorine. The two together can form a harmful gas byproduct.
Checking/dosing acid every six days is not enough for a new finish. Which would explain your 8.7 result. You test it every day until the pH seems to hold for more than a day, then every other day until the pH holds for two days, etc. However often it gets above eight, you dose it back down (but not too low). This is one of the things I meant when I hinted that your startup process might not be well executed. You can't rely on a PB to come by everyday, but that's what a great startup process sometimes requires: attention every day. You've been given the green light to take it over, so do. That's why I asked about that, so that I could then encourage you to start managing your startup process yourself and do as good a job as possible. The better your startup, the better your finish will look and last.
