Sorry for the giant post! I will provide quick bullet point at the end. Feel free to skip the babble.
I tried to focus on additives, substrate and add water...did not work. lol While the tank was drained I figured I would switch the sumps around. That meant I had to completely gut my 72g stand to get all the goodies and then try to figure out how they would fit under this stand with the 20g sump and that led to this and that and blah blah.
My CO2 tank and doser w/containers will have to go outside of the stand unfortunately. There is enough room to fit the co2 tank next to sump but I wouldn't be able to get it out to refill it.

So that's another project!
Stole the 3ft power strip I made for my 40 breeder and the entire CO2 system including the reactor which was still installed on the XP3 from my 72g. Discovered my last check valve was clogged and I'm thinking that might have been what gave me problems last time I had the system running. I had a nearly full tank go empty all the sudden without "dumping". My guess is the clog would have made a lot of back pressure and forced a leak somewhere. Which would be good in the sense that at least I found an answer? MIGHT mean my practically brand new fabco NV-55 needle valve isn't trash, yay! But I think it got water in it anyway so we'll see.
Tested my actual GPH since the tank was empty and I could just throw a bucket in there. Came out to about 520gph. About 100gph lower than advertised, big surprise. (Not really).
Ok, here we go. WATER!... is cloudy as heck. Let it run overnight, still cloudy. First fear is the iron is back (long story but trust me that would be the worst case scenario and would just throw this whole project out the window!) I don't think it is iron, not orange/green enough and no slick or odor, next. Turned the pump off and was shocked to find sparkles floating around. WTH!? Soooo when I was draining the water I decided to scrape the back with a razor blade cause there was mineral deposits. When the dry deposits were scraped they flaked off, flew around and kinda sparkled! I think that must be what it is. I've added some finer pads to the sump so we'll see. Might try a water change now that I'm pretty sure it's not iron.
- Added osmocote, peat moss and oil-dri about 2" in front to 4" in highest back corner (which ended up being almost ALL 10 gallons of the oil-dri!)
- Got my 3ft power strip, reactor, Co2 system and timers from the 72g
- Replaced the 10g with a 20g sump
- Discovered the 20g sump will not allow any other equipment under the tank with it.
- Tested true GPH, about 520
- Added water! Super cloudy, probably from the mineral deposits I scrapped off the back.
- Haven't mentioned it yet but this is probably going to be a hard water tank
- Found out plants have been shipped and barely fit into a medium flat rate box!
- Lights have shipped but will be here between Sept 9-14, gallon of metricide 7-12
Here is a video showing the crystal/sparkles moving with the current. You can see it best if front of the overflow box.
And a cloudy water, un-leveled substrate picture to hold you guys over.
