Its a day of mixed feelings for me as i near the end of tearing down the tank handed down to me by my father after having been up running on for 20+ years now...
Will definitely miss having to maintain this tank due to all the great memories associated with it (even if i’ve cursed it our several times before when things decided to go south).
So i thought adding the tear down photos of the process would make for a fitting end to what was a great, fun tank to own and a thread i’ve tried enjoyed updating over the years (when i remembered to at least)...
The obligatory full tank shot before tear down
Removing partial water to make life easier for removing stuff
My attempt to remove some soil with the siphon before it kept getting clogged
removed all the plants and hardscape
At this point i removed 95% of the substrate using a small plastic container hence the murky water...
almost finished emptying it for the last time...
and finally the tank as it sits right now waiting to dry out before final clean...
Now all thats left to do is to wait for the remaining substrate to completely dry out so i can vacuum the remaining dirt out and then clean up, which is definitely sad for me knowing this is just the first of all my 3 tanks i’ll be tearing down over the next 2 months...
But as mentioned before, this i feel makes for a fitting end to this thread and the tank, which also gives me closure similar to saying your final goodbyes to a close friend on passing...
And yes, im very emotionally attached to my 3 tanks, mainly due to the good memories they bring to me whenever i look at them...