We have a winner in Fishforums.net
October 2022 Tank of the Month Contest
We had 7 awesome tanks entered in this month's TOTM contest featuring tanks sized at 17 to 30 gallons but only one could win...October 2022 Tank of the Month Contest
And the winner is.......
Herbibore
Let's all congratulate them
Here's the winning tank and its description
Here's my 29-gallon Landen tank, on a black Landen stand and with a Landen light on rims.
Last year I started my first nano tank (7 gallons) using tissue culture plants, and by the end of its first year, it was a mass of vegetation, making the 7 ember tetras and amano shrimp invisible. I posted a pic of that and my betta tank on an old thread buried deeply somewhere on this forum.
So this June (4 months ago) I transferred everything over to the new Landen (and cycled with the fish/shrimp, but using the old
HOB filter and all the year-old plants; no fish or shrimp were harmed in this transfer!). I was forced to do so as the old stand was buckling,
so in a way this was an emergency upgrade.
Along the way I bought 13 more ember tetras, making a total of 20, and added eight Harlequin Raspboras. Unfortunately, a blue tetra somehow got added to my bag at the LFS, and it was such a bully I added more -- but the bully drove them all of them out of the tank
except a huge one I suspect is a female. Fine. They hound each other now. The female blue tetra is on the right in the card pic; the smaller male, despite being the worst bully, is usually hiding in the vegetation, or in the back where I can't see.
Glass covered, I continued, knowing I needed bigger fish, so I added a troop of delightful bloodfin tetras (7 total); seven glowlights (of which two are "albino," even if they have beautful orange markings on their fins and eyelids); a few more amanos, not sure of number now, they hide well and some of the original are ageing; and five kuhli loaches who love swimming along the back of the glass. On the card pic, you can just barely see an albino glowlight in the dark beneath the central glowlight. Is that a bloodfin eye lower right of them in the dark area as well? A kuhli loach is somewhat visible doing a u-turn in the non-card pic -- they love swimming through the bubbles!
I have a Fluval CO2 95 gram dispenser (only 1bps) -- paintball, maybe, if I can get over my fear of CO2 cannisters 8'(. A thermo Oase Biomaster 250, plus a 30-gallon bubble filter, are hidden by the spiral vals, one giant sag, and ozelot swords in the back. Other plants are: s. repens, cabomba, scarlet temple plants, some newer Telantheras, both regular and windelov java ferns, some mini-bilbitos -- I hope, otherwise it is firm algae, lol -- two amazon compacta swords, hydrocotle, a sad attempt at microswords (the kuhli loaches won't let me root new things 8'/), susswassertang, a red ludwigia, and yesterday, some tissue culture rotala h'ra among the old dwarf hairgrass from the old tank. The old hairgrass is balding like my own head, so I hope to put it out of its misery when the rotala grows out.
Oh yeah, two types of bacopa, monarda and carolinia, both from the original tank's tissue culture, and some brown crypts. Finally, some more of the old tissue culture, cyperessus helferi in the back right corner. I leave a thick jungle in the middle back to hide the lily pipe and bubble stone, and keep it cut around for swimming space. Oh, I forgot, green cardinalis (another tissue culture -- started in the old nano, and sooo slowww to growww), and some water mistress that is cut back severely on a regular basis along with the octopus plant. Did I mention the anubias? Sure I left something out, if not that. Yes! a small remnant of Anarcharis from the forest I put in for more rapidly cycling the tank transfer. It grows fast and big with CO2! Too fast, hence the scissored near genocide (herbicide?) of the Anarcharis stand. And there is a pothos houseplant in the back right corner, which I am trying to train around the light rim, that has roots coming into the tank.
Almost Dutch-style, except for a piece of wood I carted over from the nano that had hygrophila and java ferns attached. Rounded out are heavily harvested frogbit, water lettuce, and red floaters. The floaters block too much light, but I've found the long spiral val leaves are great for keeping it in a corner, as long as you ruthlessly throw out a lot of floaters.
I add Seachem Nitrogen and Potassium with each water change (40% weekly), a dab of Iron occasionally for the red plants, and then alternate with low doses of Flourish and Trace (once each a week). I place Flourish root tabs in the Fluval Stratum substrate, concentrated on the back heavy root feeders.
Next tank / upgrade for the larger plants I will definitely add a gravel layer under the Stratum, which is perhaps a bit too thick, but roots are already showing at the bottom of the tank.
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(Just wanted to use a lot of emojis lol)
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. Great looking tank!
