Why Is My Water Cloudy?

[Disciple722]

You NEED a liquid based test kit like the API Master Kit that many of us use. Once you have one post your Ammonia and Nitrite levels and we can advise on what to do next. Until you get some readings the safest thing to do is daily 50-70% water changes with dechlorinated and temperature matched water.
Also as a general rule (although it can be bent with the right filter setup) you only want one inch of fish for 1 gallon of water. Your mollys will grow up to 4 inches (4x4=16) mickey mouse platy up to 3 inch (4x3=12) a plec that is already 3 inch (probably will get much bigger) and something else which is small now but may get bigger. Using my best guess on your unnamed fish at only an inch and using your current size of plec that comes to 35 inches of fish. I know that they may not all be that big yet but they will grow fast. And chances are by the time your platy and molly have grow up your plec will be twice their size you will have way more fish than you can handle in a 20 gallon.
All that said, most of us started this hobby wrong and had to learn along the way. Lucky for you, you found this site early and can pull from the wealth of knowledge here and may not have to learn the same lessons from dead fish and starting all over that some of us have had to do.

Ok, I got a test kit and it says the numbers are:
GH: 120
KH: 240
PH: 7.5
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ammonia 4.0

 

[Essjay]

Ok, I got a test kit and it says the numbers are:
GH: 120
KH: 240
PH: 7.5
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ammonia 4.0

You need to take action asap to get rid of that ammonia. The highest safe-ish level is 0.25. With a small tank like your 20 gallons, I would take out as much water as possible, leaving just enough to cover the fish, then refill with dechlorinated water at the same temp as the water you just took out. Then measure the ammonia level again, and if it shows anything above zero, do another huge water change. From now on you will need to do a lot of water changes. Your aim is to stop that ammonia reading from ever getting over 0.25, so you'll need to do a water change whenever the reading shows 0.1 to stop it getting too high before the next test.

The reason you have zero nitrite is not because you have grown enough bacteria to remove it but because you haven't grown enough ammonia eating bacteria to make it yet. So once the ammonia eaters do start to grow, nitrite will go up too. It'll go up fast because 1ppm ammonia is turned into 2.7ppm nitrite. Like with ammonia, you will need to do water changes to keep nitrite from ever reaching 0.25.

For a while yet, you will be doing lots of water changes to keep the ammonia reading low. Then you'll be doing water changes to keep both ammonia and nitrite low. Then the ammonia will drop to zero but you'll still have nitrite, so you'll still need to do the water changes.
Eventually you will notice it's taking longer and longer for the nitrite reading to get near 0.25, then one day you'll realise you've only had zero readings for ammonia and nitrite for the last week so you haven't needed to do any water changes. That's when your filter will be cycled.


If you still have the same fish by then, you will have to do more water changes, or bigger volumes, for your maintenance routine as that many fish will make a lot of nitrate, and the only way to get rid of that is by water changes.



It is also a good idea to test your tapwater as well as the tank water. And leave a glass of tapwater to stand overnight and test it again - you'll probably find your pH is different. Mine goes up 0.2 on standing.

 

[Disciple722]

Ok, I got a test kit and it says the numbers are:
GH: 120
KH: 240
PH: 7.5
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ammonia 4.0

You need to take action asap to get rid of that ammonia. The highest safe-ish level is 0.25. With a small tank like your 20 gallons, I would take out as much water as possible, leaving just enough to cover the fish, then refill with dechlorinated water at the same temp as the water you just took out. Then measure the ammonia level again, and if it shows anything above zero, do another huge water change. From now on you will need to do a lot of water changes. Your aim is to stop that ammonia reading from ever getting over 0.25, so you'll need to do a water change whenever the reading shows 0.1 to stop it getting too high before the next test.

The reason you have zero nitrite is not because you have grown enough bacteria to remove it but because you haven't grown enough ammonia eating bacteria to make it yet. So once the ammonia eaters do start to grow, nitrite will go up too. It'll go up fast because 1ppm ammonia is turned into 2.7ppm nitrite. Like with ammonia, you will need to do water changes to keep nitrite from ever reaching 0.25.

For a while yet, you will be doing lots of water changes to keep the ammonia reading low. Then you'll be doing water changes to keep both ammonia and nitrite low. Then the ammonia will drop to zero but you'll still have nitrite, so you'll still need to do the water changes.
Eventually you will notice it's taking longer and longer for the nitrite reading to get near 0.25, then one day you'll realise you've only had zero readings for ammonia and nitrite for the last week so you haven't needed to do any water changes. That's when your filter will be cycled.


If you still have the same fish by then, you will have to do more water changes, or bigger volumes, for your maintenance routine as that many fish will make a lot of nitrate, and the only way to get rid of that is by water changes.



It is also a good idea to test your tapwater as well as the tank water. And leave a glass of tapwater to stand overnight and test it again - you'll probably find your pH is different. Mine goes up 0.2 on standing.

Ok, thanks for the great advice from everyone, I will keep doing daily water changes until the levels get to the numbers you mentioned. And I'll keep you posted on how the levels drop until the tank is fully cycled. Thanks again.