Vote Now! - March 2022 Tank of the Month Contest (16 US gal & smaller)

[Fishmanic]

POLL IS NOW CLOSED

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PLEASE VOTE!
We have 10 awesome tanks entered in Fishforums' March 2022 Tank of the Month contest featuring tanks sized at 16 US gallons and smaller. View all the tanks and descriptions below and then go to poll at the top of this thread, click on your choice for TOTM, and then click the "Cast" button.

It’s best to view these awesome tanks on a computer screen or a tablet instead of a small phone screen.

Please Note:
Any attempt to influence competition results, other than by casting your allocated vote, is not permitted and may result in your entry being removed and / or further action being taken. This is a public poll so source of votes can be viewed.

Winner will be awarded a neat "Tank of the Month Winner" banner in his profile area and will be featured in a "TOTM Winner" thread for all to see and to comment on. Winner will also be added to our TOTM WALL OF FAME

This poll will end on March 13th at 2:40 PM ET (US)

 

[Gkat66]

• 10 gal. planted started 01/16 /22 Future Betta home
• Used Marineland aquarium ( I've had this tank over 10 years, it has a few scratches )
• Mix of RO water and well water ( no softener ) Added Brightwell Micro bacter starter
• Filtration , Eheim Classic 250 canister filled with ceramic media , green filter pads , polishing pad
• DIY outlet (because I don't care for the bright green spray bar it came with )
• Mini glass Lily Pipe skimmer intake (again don't like the green and I like to keep the surface clean )
• CO2 with FZone regulator and Neo mini diffuser
• Marineland 100 watt heater
• Lighting ,Finnex Planted + 24/7 CRV
• DIY background , frosted acrylic sheet with LED lightbar behind ( I can change the color )
• Fertilize with API Leaf Zone twice a week , Seachem Iron as needed , root tabs as needed
• API freshwater master kit , API GH & KH test , Seachem Iron test kit
• Spiderwood (tree) , mopani wood ( bridge )
• Spectastone gravel and black sand for path
• Plants , Java and Christmas moss , Bucephalandra Peacock , Anubias Bateri var.nana, Alternanthera
• Rotala Wallichii ,Micro sword , hornwort , red root floaters , Pogostemon Helferi
• 2 Apple snails , Clown pleco ( 2 inches ) Male Betta coming soon
• I feed Hikari algae wafers twice a week and will feed Hikari Betta Bio Gold
• Weekly 25% water changes
• PH 7 ( before lights come on and co2 turns on ) PH 6.6 ( after lights and co2 are on )
• Ammonia 0
• Nitrite 0
• Nitrate 10
• KH 3, GH 10

 

[connorlindeman]

This is my attempt at a Iwagumi Tank. It is 10 gallons and houses 3 male fancy guppies. They are not the permanent inhabitants. As suggested by someone on this forum I will be putting about 10 Clown Killifish in soon. Not too sure if the killis will like the scape. I need to do some more research. The tank was set up about 2 months ago.

The plants in the tank:
Water Sprite(floating and some planted. )
Pearl Weed.(just added the pearl weed in about a week ago. Soon I aim for it to spread across the front of the tank in a thick carpet.

The rocks were purchased from the fish store. Not sure what type they are but they look cool

The substrate is quikrete play sand.

I do a weekly 25% water change. I will up that to maybe 50% once I add the clown killifish.

The fish are fed daphnia, tubifex worms, brine shrimp, and a variety of high-quality flakes.

I have a 100-watt aqueon heater and a quiet flow 10 filter. I plan on changing that to a sponge filter because the killis like a bit more calm water.

The lights are on for 8 hours. I use some flourish but not that much.

Well, that's about it.

 

[sadness child]

This is my 10 gallon, 1 year old tank that I “let go” it had bigger plants in it, but they all died off except for the one in there now. Soon after that moss and algae took over the tank. I liked how it looked and supported the mollies I have in there so I let it keep growing and trimming it back. It also provides a lot of cover and hiding place for the baby mollies and dwarf frog that live here.

Stocking:
4 Female mollies of my own
1 male mollie whose genes I do not know
1 female red wag platy who I raised from a free baby gotten from a Petsmart
6 baby mollies (That I have counted so far)
1 African Dwarf Frog
4 Gold Tetras

Plants:
A variety of mosses and algae
A plant who I don’t know the name of
Duckweed

Hardscape:
Pool filter sand
Malaysian driftwood with moss on it (it creates a very nice cave for the Terra’s and mollies)
Various rocks that have been readied for aquascaping

Equipment:
100w heater
Top Fin multi stage filter for 20 gal
Aqueon planted tank light

Maintenance:
10% weekly water changes
Pick out excess moss
Feed fish flakes twice a day
Whenever the babies grow up I give them to the store, or I move the males I like into my 46 gallon tank
Occasionally get a new male to diversify the genes
Lights are on for around 12 hours

And from the fabulous words form Connor: “Well, that’s about it.”

 

[Cromid]

Here’s my 15 US Gal long tank - not filled the to the top so maybe about 50Litres
I wanted to create a simple, low maintainable low tech bog feel for this scape. Slow flow, Lots of bogwood and river rocks with simple easy growing plants, I’d eventually like to add some emersed plants in the back corner, maybe some ferns/Lilys.

Stocking with:
1 male betta
8 harlequin rasbora
Selection of red cherry shrimp

Hardscape
Selection of bogwood
River rocks, pebbles and sand
Substrate
Tropica aquarium soil

Plants
Anubias
Anubias petit
Christmas moss
Rotala Rotundifolia

Water parameters
76c
Soft water
Ph 7.5
0/0/15
Doing small water changes once a week, but topping off every few days as the evaporation is quite fast.
Not dosing with any ferts or co2

Filtration
Simple hang on back filter from Aquaeon

Lightning and heating
Nicrew 24/7 led lighting - will be changing for a smaller led light I can then raise once I’ve added the emersed plants, also believe this is why ive a small algae issue on the glass.
Simple in tank 100w heater

I hope you like this tank guys!

 

[Kolykaf]

This is my 15 month old 3.5 gallon planted bowl.
The substrate is a layer of organic potting soil capped with pool filter sand. The plants function as the bowl’s filtration. They include: pearl weed, Rotala indica, Rotala H’ra, Ludwigia repens, Hygrophila lancea, Didiplis diandra, root floaters (and two other stem plants whose names I cannot recall). I also have Anubias nana petite and Bucephalandra sp godzilla glued to a small piece of lace rock in the center of the bowl. The light is supplied by a desk lamp with a 7 watt LED bulb (500 lumens, 5000K) set on a timer to provide a cycle of 5 hours on, 3 hours off, then another 3 hours on per day.
I perform 50% water changes every other week with R/O water remineralized with Seachem Equilibrium. I top off with R/O water every 3 days (as my cats prefer this to their water bowl). I trim the plants every month or so.

Parameters stay remarkably consistent for such a small volume (and the bowl is remarkably algae-free):
Ph 6.8
Gh 5
Kh 1
It has never registered any ammonia, nitrite or nitrate, and I add no fertilizers.

On initial set-up, I stocked it with 5 Boraras uropthalmoides and some blue dream neocaridina shrimp. 6 weeks ago I re-homed the boraras to make room for a pair of beautiful pygmy sunfish (Elassoma gilberti). They have since spawned so I’ve got quite a few fry. I feed them live black worms and daphnia. For now the infusoria are sustaining the fry but I think I’ll start culturing baby brine shrimp. When I removed the boraras I also removed the heater from the bowl. In the dead of winter the water temperature doesn’t dip below 65F which is great for the sunfish (whose temperature range is 50-86F)

 

[CGY_Betta_Guy]

Tank is a 6 Gallon Fluval Edge with a self built overflow box that feeds down into a 10 gallon sump. It is one of a pair of these tanks displayed side by side that have been running for approximately 11 years in various iterations but this scape was started Oct 1 2021. This is meant to be a scape of a mountainous area with trees and other foliage sprouting out amongst the dragonstone rocks.

Flora:
Anubias 'Petite'
Anubias 'Pangolino'
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Flamingo'
Eleocharis acicularis 'mini'
Eriocaulon cinereum
Hemianthus micranthemoides
Lilaeopsis brasiliensis
Marsilea crenata
Myriophyllum ‘Guyana’
Rotala rotundifolia 'H'ra'
Rotala wallichii
Bucephalendra Kedagang
Bucephalendra Mini Red

Equipment:
Fluval Edge tank 6G
Fluval Waterhome 10 G acting as sump
2x MR11 LED bulbs that replaced the original halogens that came with the Fluval Edge kit
1x 16" Finnex Fugeray Plant+
In line CO2 diffuser on the return line from the sump
Marineland Maxijet 900 rated at 230 GPH

Substrate:
Tropica Soil
Tropica Soil powder at foreground

Hardscape:
Dragonstone

Critters:
20 Phoenix Rasbora
30+ Fire Red Cherry shrimp ( initial stocking was 10)
4 horned nerite snails
1 big Malaysian trumpet snail
9 juvenile Amano shrimp

Fertilization: Root tabs in substrate were put in at the start in mid tank area and near foreground. A squirt of Tropica premium last month is about all I have dosed so far.

Feeding is daily with finger crushed pinch of bug bites. Shrimps get varied diet of one of Shirakura, snowflakes, shrimp king, shrimp cuisine or mineral junkie bites every 4 or 5 days. Between shrimp and snails I do not currently have to do much tank maintenance other than trimming and 50% water changes weekly. Lighting is currently on a 4 on 4 off 4 on schedule daily.

 

[Graeme M]

This my Fluval Flex 34 litre tank which I orignally purchased as a tank to grow on young Mollies however it has since turned into a planted aquarium next to where I currently work from home.

The tank has been running for just under 1 year.

There is a single piece of hardwood centrally in the tank around which have planted various anubias, crypts, java fern, moss and pogostemon helferi. There is no CO2 and plants are dosed with Tropica fertiliser every other day.

Lighting is via the unit which came with the tank and is on for around 7 hours a day at about 75% of the maximum level. I carry out a weekly water change of around a third of the water.

Current inhabitants are my Betta named Mylo, 10 ember tetras, one nerite snail and 3 velvet blue shrimp. Feeding is once a day with Bug Bites with occasional algae wafer added for the shrimp.

Parameters are

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5-10ppm
PH around 7
Temp is around 74C

 

[CuriousFins]

10 gallon betta tank.
Set up with plants on Feb/10/22, stocked with a male butterfly betta and some ghost shrimp on Feb/23/22(although the betta unfortunately killed the shrimp).
25-50% water changes will be done weekly.
Ferts used are Aquarium Co-op All-in-One Easy Green Liquid Fertilizer and Easy Root Tabs.
Currently the betta is being fed about 5 OmegaOne Betta Buffet Pellets per day, with an occasional OmegaOne Betta Buffet flake. In the future I am planning on broadening his diet.
The tank has ambulia(which is struggling a bit currently), ludwigia sp., rotala rotundiifolia, cryptocoryne wendtii, dwarf sag, juncus repens, and water sprite(floating). There are three 6-inch pieces of cholla wood with java moss.
The substrate is black Imagitarium sand(the petco brand).
Filtration is an Aquaneat sponge filter.
Lighting is an Aquaneat light, which is not the brightest but is on for 10 hours a day.
GH is 50. KH is 30. PH is about 6.8. Nitrates are around 20. Nitrites are zero, ammonia is zero.
Temps hover around 78 F.

 

[Caesar]

This is my 6 gallon Fluval Edge that I removed the lid from. It's become a home for oddball fish that get shipped in to us at the shop. There's a wildcaught farlowella that has a bizarre short body mutation, two different individuals from seperate dwarf loach species, and a king betta.

I've got anubias, monstera, philodendron, money wort, and pothos vine growing emersed out of it. There a mess of roots, java moss, bolbitis, and java fern growing immersed. Hardscape is driftwood, petrified wood, a small hunk of amethyst, and dried botanicals. The light is an older, superior, model of the Astra 120. Filtration is a simple sponge filter.

 

[betta4ever!]

6 gallon betta tank, with Espresso the betta, and hundreds of ramshorns and MTS! I have it set up for over 2 years. I dont remember the plants names...! It has dried plane tree and banana leaves, and its a blackwater, low maintance tank! I do nothing than add water conditioner because I want it to be as natural as possible. I hope you like it!

 

[Fishmanic]

End of Entries:
Slowly scroll upward and then in the poll at the top of this thread, select your favorite and then click the "cast" button.
Thanks for participating in our Tank of the Month contest

In mid March, we will start our Pet of the Month contest. For March POTM, we will be featuring "Pet Pals." You may enter a pair of pets of similar of dissimilar species that spend time together and interact with each other. You may post either a picture or a video of your 2 pets. This should be an exciting and interesting contest.

 

[connorlindeman]

Best of luck to everyone!

 

[PheonixKingZ]

You may enter two of your pets that tend to interact with each other. Get those "Pet Pals" pics ready.

As part of the pet pals, can we enter a pet that has already won a POTM? (For example, I want to enter both my cats because they are best friends, but one of them has already won POTM)

 

[Fishmanic]

No you cannot enter a Pet that won a previous POTM contest.