Vote Now - January 2021 Tank of the Month (17-30 gallons)

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We have 6 nice tank setups for Fishforums' January 2021 Tank of the Month contest featuring tanks sized at 17 to 30 US gallons. View all the tanks and descriptions below and then go to top of this thread and click on your choice for TOTM and then click the "Cast" button.

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Poll will close on January 16th at 3:52 PM ET (US). We at fishforums.net thank you for your participation.

Happy New Year everyone! As a relative newbie with a busy working schedule, I had to opt for a low-maintenance approach. Admiring so many tanks I've seen on this forum, I'll post first, in the hope of throwing out a minnow to catch a whale, well, MANY whales. May the 2021 bring you healthy fish and prosperous tanks.

Size: 29 gallon fresh water.
Age of setup: 23 months.
Fish stocking: 1 bristlenose pleco, 3 serpae tetra, 3 flame tetra, 3 platy, 8 fancy guppy and their kids.
Plants: Vallisneria torta, Cryptocoryne wendtii Bronze, El Nino fern, Egeria densa, Subwassertang, Sagittaria Subulata, some kind of Amazon sword.
Substrate: Aquarium gravel, lava rock pebbles.
Water parameters: Ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 6-9, 73F.
Ferts used: None.
Lighting: LED, 6 hours per day.
Filtration type: Tetra Whisper 60.
Aeration: None.
Tank maintenance procedures: 30% Water change per week.
Feeding schedules: Flake, pleco wafer. Once per day. Occasional peeled boiled peas.

After 13-15 years out of the hobby, I sparked an interest in getting back into fish keeping with my 9year old son. It became somewhat of a great project to plan and gradually put together, so we’ll start with a few details....

Tank setup:
-20 gallon long (brand unknown, free off Kijiji and re-sealed)
-Eheim 100w heater
-Aqueon Quietflow 10 air pump with a 1” air stone
-Aqueon folding lid with matching light canopy
-2x Aqueon 36” LED lights, one Beauty max and one Day time White
-Fluval 207 canister filter
-Hand painted background (son helped me with)
-TopFin black fine gravel.
-Variety of river rock and black/grey flagstone
-Custom built aquarium stand by yours truly. Frame built out of pressure treated 2x4, specs from most readily available stand builds, strong as can be and built to last. Trimmed it out with a variety of leftover pressure treated railing and fence building materials I had leftover. Doors I threw together really quick and they need replacing already, but that’s a different story. Under cabinet led light strips are connected to a door switch that turns the lights on when you open the left door.

Stocking:
2x Corydoras Pandas
15x Neon & Diamond Neon Tetras
2x Zebra Nerite snails
3x Otocinclus
3x Amano shrimp

Future Stocking:
Plan to add 2 more pandas to complete the group when I can some in stock, my quarantine tank is running and waiting.

Plants:
Christmas Moss
Anubias nana
Crypt wendtii
Wisteria
Ludwigia red
Crypt becketti
Anubias congensis

fish feeding: tropical flakes, frozen brine shrimp, frozen baby brine shrimp, algae wafers, blanched zucchini, frozen bloodworms

plant feeding: seachem root tabs, aquarium co-op easy green

Tank is maintained with 25% weekly water changes using a mix of tap and RO water. The fluval bio rings were swapped out of the canister and replaced with lava rock and packed all three compartments full. Filter is serviced once every 3-4 weeks.

Consistent reading of 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and usually <10 nitrate. Gh averaging ~100ppm with introduction of RO water. Ph consistent at 7.8. Temperature fluctuates between 76-78F, and the heater never turns on as I have the thermostat set to 72ish.

I’m still waiting for the plants to fill out more to really get the looks I’m going for, but so far I’m very happy with it.
This is not an exciting to watch, it’s a very peaceful one. Which works well with the hardscape because it you want to find the ottos, shrimp or snails, sometime you gotta work for it. they have so many places to hide to find food.
Otherwise you’re just looking at plants and neons begging for food. That’s alright with me though, I can watch this tank all day long.
Best of all, it’s been a great experience getting my kids involved in the whole thing.

This is my 29 gallon tank. It is currently stocked with 3 mollies, 1 platy, 10 cories, 3 upside down cats, 1 clown pleco, and snails. I have 2 Amazon Swords, Moneywort, Pennywort, Vairegated Reinekii, Ludwigia Repens, Water Sprite, Baby Water Lettuce, Duckweed, Hygrophila Corymbosa, a Bannana Plant, Anubias, lots of Java moss, Marimo Moss balls, and Süsswassertang. I have a Marienland Penguin Bio-wheel filter, an airstone, and a Nicrew Classic LED light. I have river stones, 2 larger pieces of rock, Mopani wood, and Malaysian driftwood. I do weekly 75% water changes and I feed my fish OmegaOne Freshwater flakes, Fluval Bug bites, Tetra Shrimp wafers, Aqueon Algae wafers, Omega One Freeze dried Brine Shrimp cubes, Frozen Bloodworms, and blanched cucumber. I dose Seachem Flourish at half dose once weekly and I use Seachem Root Tabs. Thanks for looking!

This is my 100 litre Aquascaper 600 tank. I first set it up in June after being tankless for about a year, I started watching aquascaping videos on YouTube through the first UK lockdown and got inspired to try that side of the hobby for the first time. This is my third attempt in this tank, the first ended in brown algae missery the second went better but the hardscape started to fall apart and I was getting an issue with staghorn and black brush algae.

Tank specs
- Aquascaper 600 tank
- Oase Biomaster 250 thermo filter. With stainless steel lilly pipes and skimmer. Filter uses medium sponges in the pre-filter, JBL filter floss in the top basket and 3 baskets of Seachem Matrix
- Twinstar SM II lighting (set at 70% for 6 hours per day)
- Tropica Aquarium Soil & Soil Powder substrate
- Co2 injection from a Co2 fire extinguisher. Co2 Art SE regulator and a stainless steel and ceramic in tank diffuser

The scape was inspired by the Brazillian style of aquascaping - particularly from a couple of videos from Jurijs Jutjajevs. I got the planting ideas from Filipe Oliveras style, there are a lot of species bunched together to create a natural look through a mix of colours and textures. The rocks are all Frodo Stone (because thats what the cool kids use) which I like for its varied textures and unlike some other aquascaping rocks it does not affect water chemistry.

Plant list
- Eliocharis Acicularis
- Marsilea Hirsuta
- Littorella Uniflora
- Hygrophila Araguaia
- Hygrophila Pinnatifida
- Rotala H'ra
- Rotala Rotundafolia 'Green'
- Rotala Indica 'Bonsai'
- Lundwigia Arcuata
- Juncus Repens
- Staurogyne Repens
- Limnophilla Sessiflora
- Limnophilla Heterophylla
- Taxiphyllum sp. 'Flame' (Flame Moss)
- Ricardia Chamedryfolia

Livestock is just a group of Amano Shrimp right now but the hope is to get a school of 20-25 Galaxy Rasbora or Emerald Rasbora depending on what I can find in or out of lock down. I've held off while I have been learning how to control the Co2 process.

Wills

Before I start, I’d just like to point out that I am a newbie to the fish keeping community but this is my 75L planted tank that I’ve had setup for around 4 months, it was supposed to be a simple breeding tank for some blue steel killifish, however it has now become a Guppy/Killifish/pleco tank after having to adopt some fish from the girlfriend. It is a little overstocked at the moment but the guppies will soon be having their own tank and the fry will be moving to a different home.



Stocking:

2x male dumbo ear guppy (not sure of species type)

4x female guppy

25x guppy fry ( won’t be in there for long )

1x bristle nose pleco

4x blue steel killifish



I’m not too sure of all the plants in there, but they are all sourced from tropica, although there is definately Java moss, Alternanthera reineckii, and Amazon frogbit in there. There is also 2 logs In there and 1 river rock. Lots of hiding spaces in and around the logs and rock which the killifish seem to love. It just has a simple aqua one filter and heated to 24C. The fish are fed flake once a day 6 days a week and on a Sunday I feed them freeze dried daphnia just to change up the diet a bit, for the pleco I feed her half a slice of cucumber every 2 days, she normally struggles to get through this and I’ll normally remove a large portion of what I put in a couple hours later. The tank gets a 25-30% water change once a week, and I use tropica plant fertiliser when the water gets changed and halfway through the week. The plants grow so quickly using this that I have been able to clip the plants and replant (I only bought one of each plant when I started). The tank is lit using an LED that is active for about 8-9 hours a day.



Hopefully one day soon this will become what I initially wanted, a killifish and pleco tank but for now the guppies have a temporary claim on the tank.

My superfish 100L now quarantine tank.
Been set up since the end of September

25% weekly change
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ph 7
Can’t remember the plants sorry.
current housing
11x harlequins
1x lamp eye
1x red tail black shark (very tiny)
Now in their 2nd week of quarantine
No ferts used
Aqua safe added during water changes.
led lighting
Air pump
Basic filter and heater (part of the starter kit) but does the job nicely.
10hrs of light and fed probiotic tropical micro flake.

End of Entries:
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We have a winner. Naterjm has won January 2021 TOTM. You may congratulate him in the "Winner's thread" at THIS LINK