CassCats - 2025 Tank of the Year Winner

[connorlindeman]

We have a winner in Fishforums.net
2025 Tank of the Year Tournament
The 12 past winners of Tank of the Month contests for 2025 were entered in the 2025 Tank of the Year Tournament. Our members voted in a poll to choose which tank was the best of the best for 2025.
And the winner is.......

@CassCats

Here is the winning tank:​

All of the plants and fish are found within the Paraguay region, particularly in the Rio Paraguay and Parana basins. Sources such as GBIF, EOL, and iNaturalist were used to research the occurrences of the plants and fish for this setup. This set up has been running for over a year now, but had been a previous setup that had had multiple failures and restarts. I am happy to say this set up, which was started back from scratch, has been unproblematic and likely my favourite setup to date. This is a subtropical region of South America, and temperatures as low as 60s aren't abnormal for the area. This tank recently had a heater mishap (somehow it got unplugged) and temperatures dipped down well below 64F and the fish had no problems and had even been spawning regardless.

Stock:
15 hoplisoma paleatum
20 hyphessobrycon elachys
9 bario forestii/sanctaefilomenae
2 apistogramma borelli

Plants:
Heternanthera zostifolia
Potamogeton gayi
Sagittaria subulata
Bacopa australis

Hardscape: round river rocks and driftwood collected from local freshwater river.

Temperature: 72-74F
pH 7
GH 5°
KH 3°
TDS 107

Light: JC&P Full Spectrum LED

Filtration: Fluval Fx4 Canister

Heater: Hitop 300w (only plugged in from December to March)

Wavemaker: 528gph Sunsun Brand

Fertilizer: The Plant Guy's All in One fertilizer, a Canadian only product. Comparable to NilocG Thrive for much lower a price.

Water is changed weekly, 75-90% is removed.

 

[connorlindeman]

Congrats to @CassCats for winning TOTY with your beautifully scaped masterpiece.

Thanks to every one of our members that participated in our TOTY contest. If you want to see the now closed poll featuring the 12 TOTY entries, CLICK HERE.
Prizes in the form of Amazon gift certificates will be awarded as follows:
First place: @CassCats - $100
Second place: @WhistlingBadger - $50
Third place: @FishBR - $25

 

[MattW]

Congrats! Loads of great tanks this year too!

 

[Fishmanic]

Congrats on the well deserved win @CassCats
All the tanks were awesome....such a great contest showing off all the best tanks of our members during 2025.
Thanks also to @connorlindeman for running all these contests.

 

[Whitecloudminnowguy09]

Congrats @CassCats ! Also, wanted to say thank you, @connorlindeman for doing these contests. I appreciate the work put in!

 

[emeraldking]

Congratulations on the win, @CassCats...

 

[Innesfan]

A gorgeous tank. This comp had me thinking long and hard before voting. Congrats to you and all the other monthly winners.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Wow, this is great! I plan on using my winnings to put the Badgerling through college.

Congratulations Cass on a well-earned win! What a fun competition. It was fun spending some time pondering all these truly beautiful tanks.

 

[elephantnose3334]

This is the third time a tank other than in November won the TotY in this decade (August 2022, February 2024 and 2025). Congrats @CassCats.

 

[Essjay]

Congratulations

 

[dascrow]

Congrats @CassCats!

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Congratulations! Nice tank.

 

[Fishkeeper123]

Congrats @CassCats

 

[Back in the fold]

Send me your winnings and I’ll invest it for you .