Change of plans... only slightly. Did a LARGE water change last night and today. Long drug out water change.
Late last night I did my normal drain the sump of all water and refill water change, altho I added the caribsea mineral mud(its 100% black sand no mud about it, and yes I had a severe flashback) as well as the Fiji mud to the large chamber of the sump. Filled it all up with water and tried to let it settle for a few hours while I played xbox.
Started up the return pump a few hours later and turned the tank black. I added a fresh filter sock(previously only had the coarse sponge pad) and went to bed. Fish had already long been asleep and by the time I woke up today, the tank was clear, so no harm done.
Today, fumbling with the 3.5 skimmer and changing out the clogged filter sock... I stirred up more of the sand. Tank got cloudy but wasnt bad. Hmmm, cant be having this ever time we go to do anything down there. Just removing a sock caused enough change in the water flow to stir the sand everywhere. Plus, I havent been able to tune the skimmer at all. It's either overflowing the cup, or its pumping bubbles out the bottom and filling the display.
So I turned the return off again, removed all of the sand and mud, and put it in the actual refugium chamber, the front one. I emptied the skimmer chamber as best I could, and placed my workhorse Curve 5 back in its place.
Of course, stirring up a bunch of sand and mud in a sump full of water made one heck of a cloud... and I turned the return pump on right after doing it. I should have gotten a picture of how dark the tank was but the Kessil couldn't penetrate all the wat to the bottom, I couldn't see more than a few inches into the tank, and my brunneus wrasse laid down on the bottom as if to say "I give up, this dude is crazy."
So, I hooked up the drain of the skimmer cup to a 20' hose and since it was such a nice day, I decided to let the corona inside and just ran the hose out the back door. Simultaneously I had another hose set up to siphon from my water barrel. Ended up slowly draining the whole barrel and pumped it out with the skimmer over about an hour and a half or so.
This was the state of the tank when I left for work. All corals and fish look completely unphased, like a really big storm came thru and stirred up the lagoon and pushed a bunch of silt out to the reef. Actually, they look rather healthy... everything had great polyp extension. Oh, I could see better than the camera, but yes it was pretty much that opaque.
