Hi Jaspian,
I want you to pretend for a moment that you don’t have any test kits. You don’t have RO water or pH down.
Tell us, are your fish showing signs of distress? If the answer is no then there really is nothing to worry about.
Did you know the liquid KH test kit doesn’t even measure KH? Strips are notoriously more inaccurate than liquid so they are probably telling you something really meaningless.
When you try to do something meaningful with meaningless results this creates confusion and anxiety.
You are the best test kit. Look at your fish. Your own test kit (your eyes) have given you the most accurate pieces of information so far. With the results you can do something meaningful and usually that is never to get the test kits out but 90% of the time to correct tank issues it is to change some water.
In this case you have identified cloudy water. Generally, this is a ‘bacterial bloom’ and never really a good thing to see. This is because there is some microbial instability. Likely causes are disruption to the filter media, washing in tap water or cleaning too vigorously in a young tank, or disturbing the substrate.
The second thing you have identified is that the fish are healthy.
With this information we can continue as normal but be more mindful of disturbing the biological filter in future.
If however the cloudy water has a green hue this is likely an algae bloom. Harmless but a bit of a pain. No chemicals will help, only a UV light for a quick fix or patience for a long term fix.
In the words of the great Primus….’Fish On’