Cloudy water in goldfish tank

[fishykat]

Hello, I'm new to the forum, and new to the world of goldfish. We bought a 55 gallon aquarium kit and followed all the advice that has been given to us about getting the water started and the environment ready before adding our goldfish. I have already picked out a large Oranda and he's on reserve until our tank water is ready. It's now been 8 days since we added the water and the Aquasafe chemicals. We've been doing PH tests daily. We do have hard water, with a softener brine tank, but we filled the fish tank before we added new salt to the brine tank. So, the aquarium is filled with hard water. We started adding a few gallons of R/O to the aquarium to balance out the PH levels, which so far don't seem to have made a difference. None of the pet stores or other stores in our area have any of the higher PH test kits for goldfish (which should read higher than the 7.6 on the current test kit we have). So, we really don't know what level our PH is at. What we do know is that it is higher than 7.6. We added some live plant bulbs a few days ago as well. We were hoping our tank would be ready to bring home our fish today, it's been 8 days since we started the entire system going. It's running with a 3 part filter system (chemical, mechanical and biological). The water looked crystal clear until we started adding the R/O water to it, and perhaps the live plant bulbs as well. This is still a fishless tank, so I know it's not dirty from the fish itself. We're still working on the PH levels. We've added some PH reducer, which so far hasn't made any difference. We've been following all the rules that we've learned of so far. We tested the nitrites and nitrates. Both tests came back good (nitrites were at 0.0 and nitrates 30.0 ppm). I read on another website about adding ammonia, and that was news to me. So, my problem is.....how can we reduce the PH levels down to 7.2 - 7.6....do we need to add ammonia (if we do, how much and why?)......and what is making our water cloudy now (just since this morning), and how can we fix it?
I hope someone here can help me. I'm very anxious to bring my fish home. But, I want his home to be properly balanced and a healthy environment for him to live in. Please help!???!

[trashion]

Forget the pH levels. They don't matter much and goldfish will do great in high-pH, hard water. I would recommend getting the fish and some Bio-Spira. Put the Bio-Spira in at the same time as the fish, and you ought to be good to go.
If Bio-Spira is not available, try good ol' fishless cycling.
http://www.aquatic-hobbyist.com/prof...sscycling.html

Though if you have nitrates and no nitrites, that should mean you're cycled...but that makes no sense as you haven't been adding a waste source. Get a test kit for ammonia, nitrate, and nitrites, and get back to us with all the values. I'm suspect of the readings you got, as the tank hasn't been cycled, but supposedly there are nitrates.

Don't use pH reducer, it's a waste of money. Goldfish are fine in hard water.