What a long, sad, tiring weekend.

[OCDP]

Well on Friday I made the decision to switch the crush coral substrate out and put in sand. So, I buy the sand, go home... get a few cups ready. Start to scoop it out, within two or three scoops the tank was instantly clouded with a green/yellowish color. The tank was completely clouded.. couldn't see through it at all. Anyways.. make a reallllyyy long story short, after many hours and many water changes.. I got it done. Took forever to aquascape, and I still am not pleased with the end result.. the tank becomes too cloudy when I start to mess about. There is debris everywhere.

That's not even the worst of it all.... I had bought an RBTA from golds when I got the sand.. and had to introduce it into a fairly messy, cloudy tank near the end of friday night... it's doing fairly well as of now though. I have lost my bicolor blenny . havent seen it since friday evening. searched the sand for him.. looked at the rocks ( i can only see so much ) ... and still nothing.. I think he's dead somewhere in the tank, or somehow hitched a ride into my cup when I was disposing of the substrate (highly doubtful, i inspected every cup full for hermits, snails ,etc... ) maybe i crushed him with a rock?? but no body to be found . It sucks , he was my favourite.

Then, after all this mess, my clarkii got super stressed... overnight the ammonia shot up from stirring up the gravel. So I immidiately did a 60-70% water change anad brought it back down.... thought all was well, she became more lively but still hid lots.. then it must have not been able to handle the stress, and it died overnight... (saturday night)... so now I am out a bicolor blenny and my clarkii. my watchman goby is still alive.

missing my halloween hermit... but hes in the tank somewhere.

let me tell you, i never even imagined this being such a pain in the butt.. it was so much work (and only a 20g tank!!) ..

so now I am skimming, and running an aquaclear 150 HOB with carbon and a sponge. I bought a seio powerhead at golds too.. but I have it off right now so the debris settles, and I can siphon more out later this afternoon.

im sure glad its all done with now, and only have the small touch ups and cleanups to do.. no more frustration. the new white sand looks so good in the tank already, love it.

ill take some shots maybe this evening.
any suggestions welcome, advice, etc...

sorry for the rambel.. but it was such a weird stressful weekend with the tank.