For the last day or so, the water in the tank has been crystal clear (I put some bags of carbon in the sump.) Tonight, I cleaned the front glass of the display tank and noticed several scratches dead center of the glass. Since I was going to take some water out to put sand in anyway, I decided to take the opportunity to turn the tank around and use the other side as the front (it doesn't appear to have scratches near as bad.)
Before I turned the tank around, Austin and I ran to the Aquarium Center of North Carolina and bought a black background. I attached the background to the tank, emptied the water out of it, and turned it around. Turning it around was a chore and required some help from Emily. Ultimately, I'm glad I found the scratches. I was regretting not putting a background on the tank, so this gave me a good reason to go ahead and do so.
I put 7 bags (210 pounds total) of CaribSea Aragamax sugar-sized sand into the tank. I was planning on getting 5 inches worth, since I'm going with a deep sand bed (despite the trend to go bare bottom now days). However, I believe I'm more like 4 inches. I may add another couple of bags later or just add live sand. I still need either sand or mud for the refugium section of the sump tank.
Below is a picture of the tank not long after I added the sand and filled it back up with water. I'm hoping that the water will be back to clear by tomorrow.
Aquarium before new sand has settled
