cloudy water and black spots/ and plants

Question
hello, i have a 29 gallon tank that is new about 5 weeks in cycle and i have 6 tiger barbs and 2 clown loaches in it now.
my first question is my water always seems cloudy white greyish look standing back and when i look up close it look like tiny white specs are floating around. i have a bio wheel filter on it, and ive been changing the water about twice a week for about 20% of it but the water never even try's to clear up?
also on most of my tiger barbs there is some black spots on them, do you know what that is and what will treat it?
and i have about 8 plant seeds in the tank for about 4 weeks now. one of them has started growing but the rest arnt even trying, do you think they could be bad seeds or are they just slow growing? thank you

Answer
Hi Matt,
The cloudy water is common with new recently setup aquariums. It is likely a bacterial bloom due to a sudden abundance of nutrients. The easiest way to battle this until the tank establishes and balances out is to change about 50% of the tank water everyday for a while. It may take some time, but eventually your tank will clear. And as the tank establishes it should really clear on its own.

As for the Tiger barb with the black spots. I'm not entirely sure. It doesn't remind me of any disease I know of. It may be nothing wrong at all, but it could just be natural coloration. As long as the Tiger barb is still behaving normal and interacting with the others he is probably just fine and its likely just natural coloration.

Sometimes you can come across bad plant seeds. But I've also had very slow growers that don't start sprouting until over a month or more. But usually within a month the seeds should sprout, a least a little bit. If they don't they could be bad. Make sure they haven't become soft and rotted as that can sometimes happen.

I really hope this helps and best wishes!
Karen~