I would like to submit my tank for your consideration for the April 2023 TFF TOTM Contest.
This is my 29 gallon tank. I've been working on it since last October. I started adding plants last November and added the first fish in February. The tank is an Aqueon that I got at Petco during one of their tank sales. The lights are hygger HG-957 Programmable LED. The heater is a Fluval M150 Submersible heater. I have two filters. The main one is an Aquaclear 50 that I added a prefilter sponge and baffling made out of a water bottle (to disperse the output flow). I also have an Alegi sponge filter rigged with an air stone that's rated up to 30 gallons. I believe that it's better to over filter than under filter as long as the water flow doesn't affect the fish. The sponge filter is rigged up to an AquaMiracle Lithium Battery powered air pump. So if the power goes out, my tank will still have filtration and aeration.
The substrate is Quikrete play sand. For driftwood I have Manzanita branches along the back wall and Malaysian driftwood towards the front. There's a random Seiryu stone and some pebbles I attached some of the column feeder plants to. The big clump of moss on the left is actually a fish hideaway that I attached moss to so it would look a little more natural. And I have some Indian almond leaves in a back corner. The tubes you see floating up top are homemade feeder rings and a plant corral that's moderately successful.
My centerpiece fish is a honey gourami (Trichogaster chuna). There are a dozen neon tetras (Paracheirodon innesi) and I got a dozen pygmy corys (Corydoras pygmaeus). The corys hide a lot, especially during the day. I just got the neons up to a full school and I'm hoping that the neons will be a dither fish and encourage the pygmys to come out more. I'm also going to add a few more pygmys to encourage them to be less shy. There's a bunch of ramshorn and bladder snails and I got 2 assassin snails to help control their number. The assassins are in there. Somewhere. Waiting.
Now the plants....
Jungle vallisneria (Vallisneria americana)
Water wisteria (Hygrophila difformis)
Moneywort (Bacopa monnieri)
Java ferns (Microsorum pteropus)
Anubias Frazieri
Anubias Nana Petite
Java Moss (Taxiphyllum barbieri)
Amazon Sword (Echinodorus Sp Red Diamond)
Cryptocoryne Usteriana
But the most important plants are the floating plants. Water spangles (Salvinia minima), a few Amazon frogbit that aren't doing too well (Limnobium laevigatum) and a big clump of Anacharis (Elodea densa) that I only occasionally prune.
I feed the fish once a day, alternating between high quality flakes and pellets. I believe a varied diet is essential to fish health. The honey gourami and neon tetras get New Life Spectrum flakes and Fluval Bug Bites. The pygmy corys get Omega One Catfish Pellets and Fluval Bug Bites Bottom Feeder formula. Since the pygmys are so small, I grind their food into powder with a mortar and pestle. I also include frozen foods in their diet; brine shrimp, baby brine shrimp, daphnia and bloodworms. The pest snails are on their own. I didn't invite them. Every five days is a fasting day. For the plants, I dose Seachem Flourish Comprehensive Supplement twice a week and use Flourish root tabs every 3-4 months.
I do a weekly water change of 50-60% every week.
So that's my tank. I could talk all day about it. I'm pretty proud of it and it's good for my mental health. But I didn't make it by myself. This forum has been essential. I've gotten so much good advice here and so many good ideas. I hope you all like it too. And if you made it this far, thanks for reading.
PLEASE VOTE
