🐠 TOTM ENTER NOW: September 2026 Tank of the Month Contest (16 gallons and smaller)

[connorlindeman]

Please enter now!​

Ladies and Gents, Boys and Girls, all our fish lovers around the world - it's time for our monthly Tank of the Month Contest!
This month we are allowing only freshwater aquariums sized at 16 US gallons and smaller to be entered in the TOTM contest.

If you have a tank of the above stated size, please consider entering this month's contest. It doesn't matter whether your tank is planted or not planted and it doesn't matter if your tank is not yet near your final goal. More entrants make the contest more interesting, so enter your tank today!

RULES:
A picture uploaded via our "attach files" tool with a handwritten note held in front or attached to your tank with "September 2026 TFF TOTM" written on it is required to validate your entry. If you wish, you may post either a second recent picture OR a video (not both) without the note attached. (If you post a 2nd pic or video, that pic or video will be displayed as your entry post in the poll). Right under the pictures or the video, post a nice detailed write-up of your tank.
**The write up should include a good description of your tank including size, age of setup, fish stocking, water parameters, ferts used, lighting, filtration type, aeration, tank maintenance procedures, feeding schedules, etc.

• The tank you enter must be in your household
• If you won a TOTM contest previously, you must skip at least 2 TOTM contests before you can enter a different tank.
• Video can be uploaded to youtube and then a link to the video may be posted in this thread.
• A detailed description is required!
• Entries will be accepted till 4 PM ET (US) on September 9thth or when we have 10 entrants...whichever comes first. Any entrant who posts an entry after we have 10 entrants will be asked to enter the next TOTM contest and their post will be deleted. The winner will be decided by votes cast by FishForums.net members.
• Please note: you are not allowed to have friends or family join TFF for the main purpose of voting for your entry

What do I win?

• You will get a cool banner in your profile area noting that you are a winner of Tank of the Month.
• Your winning entry will be showcased in a "TOTM Winner" topic for all to see and to comment.
• Your winning entry will be added to our TOTM Wall of Fame

Please don’t post any opinions about any specific entry. Such posts will be promptly deleted. Thread will be cleaned up occasionally for readability.

 

[Whitecloudminnowguy09]

Just did a water change, will enter after the tank clears up.

 

[Back in the fold]

And naturally some super deluxe planted extravaganza will win . I’m going to enter one of my bare bottom breeder or fry rearing aquariums and see if I can get one vote . Are we fish people or plant people here ? Ponder that when you cast your vote .

 

[MattW]

12L (3gal) glass box inhabited by a single rice fish fry, snails, and a recent addition of Scuds. No water changes for this tank, only top-ups. Plants are a smorgasbord of cuttings and excess plants from my other tanks. The tank has had many renditions and was first set up in July 25'. I let algae run rampant in this tank, which has made a great environment for microfauna. The tank is unheated and remains at room tempreture. The filter is an oversized sponge filter that hasn't been cleaned in a long, long time. The light is a simple USB clip-on unit with a built-in dimmer.

 

[FattyFish]

And naturally some super deluxe planted extravaganza will win . I’m going to enter one of my bare bottom breeder or fry rearing aquariums and see if I can get one vote . Are we fish people or plant people here ? Ponder that when you cast your vote .

As a staff member and moderator, your comments are a bit negative.
I believe the point of this competition is to show what you have giving ideas to anyone who is looking for inspiration. I have a heavily planted tank as my showpiece. The reason for this is that I want my tank to look nice, and it works great for my fish. I love to see the fish swimming through the plants, roots and wood that adorn my aquarium. There is a place for bare-bottom aquariums, and these also look really good when thought and imagination are used to obtain something that looks nice and works for the fish.
Instead of being negative in your comments, why don't you enter your stunning bare-bottom plantless aquarium that took time and effort to put together for your fish and anyone who cares to look at it, and we can all ponder before casting our vote.

 

[Whitecloudminnowguy09]

This is my 10g aquarium! Plants include water sprite (the plant in the middle that is overtaking everything else lol), amazon sword, duckweed, limnofiimno wilsonii (hidden behind the water sprite), lilly bulb plant, and 2 others I forget the names of. The rock is from a nearby creek, and there is driftwood and dragon stone in there as well. Topfin kit filter, Hygger light, GLA custom fertilizer, and 5 white cloud mountain minnows. PFS for substrate. I apologize for the bad lighting!

 

[Back in the fold]

Behold ! This is one of my five gallon fry rearing aquariums . The fish are an aquarium strain of Fundulopanchax gardneri . These are among the easier to spawn and raise of the Killifish . They are not usually available in shops but I did find my breeders in a local pet shop last summer . Most of the time you have to do some networking and take the initiative to join a specialty club like the American Killifish Association and buy fish or eggs from member breeders . Killifish are not like other aquarium fish . Spawning takes some skills that you don’t need with other tropicals . I did not have these skills and had to learn them . I learned to make yarn spawning mops , pick eggs and incubate them . I had to learn the behavior of a fish I knew nothing about and my efforts were rewarded with this nice batch of juveniles . There’s still more to learn such as why I have many more males than females . There’s an infinite number of variables that affect that ratio .
This aquarium has no substrate or plants . The fish are heavily fed and I do frequent large water changes . No substrate makes that easy . The heater is unplugged because these are more a temperate water fish than a tropical . I was about to give up and figure that these Killies were another nut I couldn’t crack but some timely advice and encouragement from The Legendary @GaryE saved the day . Don’t be too quick to throw in the towel ! A working aquarium with results is what you behold here .

 

[Fishmanic]

Behold ! This is one of my five gallon fry rearing aquariums . The fish are an aquarium strain of Fundulopanchax gardneri . These are among the easier to spawn and raise of the Killifish . They are not usually available in shops but I did find my breeders in a local pet shop last summer . Most of the time you have to do some networking and take the initiative to join a specialty club like the American Killifish Association and buy fish or eggs from member breeders . Killifish are not like other aquarium fish . Spawning takes some skills that you don’t need with other tropicals . I did not have these skills and had to learn them . I learned to make yarn spawning mops , pick eggs and incubate them . I had to learn the behavior of a fish I knew nothing about and my efforts were rewarded with this nice batch of juveniles . There’s still more to learn such as why I have many more males than females . There’s an infinite number of variables that affect that ratio .
This aquarium has no substrate or plants . The fish are heavily fed and I do frequent large water changes . No substrate makes that easy . The heater is unplugged because these are more a temperate water fish than a tropical . I was about to give up and figure that these Killies were another nut I couldn’t crack but some timely advice and encouragement from The Legendary @GaryE saved the day . Don’t be too quick to throw in the towel ! A working aquarium with results is what you behold here . View attachment 385987

Be careful...having that lamp in your aquarium could cause your fish to get electrocuted

 

[bgarthe]

This my 10g tank with 9 Megalamphodus bentosi (candy cane tetras) and a few Hoplisoma paleatus (peppered corydorus). The CoryCats can hide under the modified log half and I can feed them through that hole on top if needed preventing the tetras from eating the Cory pellets. The tank is filtered with an AC 30 HOB and a sponge filter. It is heated with a Finnex HMX Titanium Heater to 76-77F degrees. The pH is 7.8-8.0 with a GH and KH of 2-5. My 3/4”-1” deep substrate is the basting sand.

 

[connorlindeman]

We still have room for more entries!

 

[Helina]

Hello!
I would like to enter my one and only aquarium.




Aquarium technical details:

• Aquarium: Eheim Aquastar 54 litre LED (14,3 US Gallons), working since 2020, moved twice
• Filter: EHEIM biopower 160 with Eheim Substrat Pro biological filter material and Seachem Purigen for crystal clear water. Intake holes protected from shrimps with filter floss
• Light: Eheim classicLED PLANTS 7,7 W, 6-8h per day
• Heater: Eheim thermocontrol 50 W, at 24 Celsius
• No aeration, fast surface filter flow from tube with many holes, imitating natural surface flow

My favorite pets:

• A shoal of 8 Green Neon Tetras (Paracheirodon simulans)
• 20+ Neocaridina davidi var. "Yellow Striped" shrimps
• 1 male Honey Gourami (Trichogaster chuna)
• 1 Macrotocinclus affinis algae eater

Plants for greenery that I love:

• Tiger Lotus, Cryptocoryne, Java Moss, Leopard Vallisneria, regular Vallisneria, Amazon Sword plant and 2 Moss Balls

Fertilizers, I should add more often:

• Tropica Premium Nutrition 2-4ml (1-2 pump) /50 litres 1-2 times a week
• Seachem Iron, 1-2 ml 1-2 times a week.
• Root tablets are JBL ProFlora Ferropol Root
• No added CO2

Feeding, which these aquatics are crazy after:

• daily automatic flake feeder: crushed JBL Pro Novo Guppy, containing 18 % Spirulina algae
• occasionally: JBL Pro Novo Artemio containing 100 % dried artemia, dusted to small pieces
• almost every day: a tiny frozen cube of gelatin food of spirulina algae and mixed fish foods

Water parameters from 22 July 2026 checkup at Helsingin Akvaariokeskus -fish store:

• NO3: 10
• NO2: 0
• GHd: 5
• KHd: 3
• pH: 7,6
• CO2: 2,2
• Fe: 0,3
• K: 5
• Mg: 3
• Conductivity: 204
• PO4: <0,02

 

[Fishmanic]

Hello!
I would like to enter my one and only aquarium.




Aquarium technical details:

• Aquarium: Eheim Aquastar 54 litre LED (14,3 US Gallons), working since 2020, moved twice
• Filter: EHEIM biopower 160 with Eheim Substrat Pro biological filter material and Seachem Purigen for crystal clear water. Intake holes protected from shrimps with filter floss
• Light: Eheim classicLED PLANTS 7,7 W, 6-8h per day
• Heater: Eheim thermocontrol 50 W, at 24 Celsius
• No aeration, fast surface filter flow from tube with many holes, imitating natural surface flow

My favorite pets:

• A shoal of 8 Green Neon Tetras (Paracheirodon simulans)
• 20+ Neocaridina davidi var. "Yellow Striped" shrimps
• 1 male Honey Gourami (Trichogaster chuna)
• 1 Macrotocinclus affinis algae eater

Plants for greenery that I love:

• Tiger Lotus, Cryptocoryne, Java Moss, Leopard Vallisneria, regular Vallisneria, Amazon Sword plant and 2 Moss Balls

Fertilizers, I should add more often:

• Tropica Premium Nutrition 2-4ml (1-2 pump) /50 litres 1-2 times a week
• Seachem Iron, 1-2 ml 1-2 times a week.
• Root tablets are JBL ProFlora Ferropol Root
• No added CO2

Feeding, which these aquatics are crazy after:

• daily automatic flake feeder: crushed JBL Pro Novo Guppy, containing 18 % Spirulina algae
• occasionally: JBL Pro Novo Artemio containing 100 % dried artemia, dusted to small pieces
• almost every day: a tiny frozen cube of gelatin food of spirulina algae and mixed fish foods

Water parameters from 22 July 2026 checkup at Helsingin Akvaariokeskus -fish store:

• NO3: 10
• NO2: 0
• GHd: 5
• KHd: 3
• pH: 7,6
• CO2: 2,2
• Fe: 0,3
• K: 5
• Mg: 3
• Conductivity: 204
• PO4: <0,02

Gorgeous tank. Your fish must be quite ecstatic living there. Please read rules and add a validation photo with handwritten note stating Sept 2026 tff totm.

 

[Helina]

Gorgeous tank. Your fish must be quite ecstatic living there. Please read rules and add a validation photo with handwritten note stating Sept 2026 tff totm.

Thank you! It's in the attachments, bottom left corner of the tank picture.
EDIT: Shall I add it to the end of my post or is it enough that it's in the attachments?

 

[Fishmanic]

Thank you! It's in the attachments, bottom left corner of the tank picture.
EDIT: Shall I add it to the end of my post or is it enough that it's in the attachments?

The area that tank is placed looks like it was made specifically for that tank. Is that true?

 

[Helina]

The area that tank is placed looks like it was made specifically for that tank. Is that true

Looks like it, but it's actually just a matter of arranging my furniture.
I posted an evening picture of the tank in its surrounding for you, to my diary here in the forums.

54 litre freshwater aquarium diary

Just wanna watch it all the time. View from the laptop workspot on couch.

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