Possible Mistakes/Questions - How to proceed?

I agree on doing an ro/di water change. Also with the crushed coral, the 2 main reasons for changing it are that being big chunks of rubble, detritus (fish poop and food waste) will settle down in between the pebbles making it hard to vacuum out with a sand/gravel vacuum. This detritus will decompose raising your nitrate, which is one of the things algae thrives on. Secondly, crush corals can hurt the belly of your fish when they're looking for food, digging caves to live in, etc.

If removing the crushed coral is not an option, perhaps burying it under the sand is your best bet. How many inches of sand do u have?

I made the same mistake u did when I started, and I removed my crushed coral. Even had used tap water as well. It's a clásico newbie mistake and it's an honest one. You will learn too that not all LFS personal are knowledgeable and they will always focus on selling u things rather than setting u up correctly and for good. I saved my crushed coral and used it as the base for my deep sand bed in the refugium.

As far as the kitty litter goes, it is more for a sump/refugium than a display tank.

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By the way.... cloudy water is normal when u first add any substrate in your tank. It will settle and I do not see this as an issue.

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I was not using litter, I was using a litter scoop to get out the crushed coral.

I removed a good bit of the coral, replaced almost all the water with RO/DI water. I will be getting some live rock this week.