Gravity-purification in your hydraulic tank (or perhaps better,... on the shelf)

[RayIN]

You wrote "The very cloudy oil has sat in 5Gal pails ever since. It's still just as cloudy as the day it was drained from the tractor."

That's could be water? I don't know,..but you can rest assured that there's no metal or stone in that cloudy oil. But I would not re-use cloudy oil.

The point of this post is to periodically settle out the stone & metal so the pump lasts longer.

RayIN your post was on Mar23, 2025. If yu still have the oil, is it clear today Nov26 ?
(8 months settling)

No, that old oil was used for starting brush-pile fires, with it holding all that water it was very hard to ignite with a hand torch.