🐠 TOTM VOTE NOW: July 2026 Tank of the Month Contest (17-30 US gallons)

[connorlindeman32 32]

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Please Vote Now
We have 4 great tanks entered in Fishforums' July 2026 Tank of the Month contest featuring tanks sized at 17-30 US gallons! View both 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.

Please DO NOT post any comments about any specific entry in this thread...such posts will promptly be deleted. You are not allowed to update your entry picture or video once voting has started.

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. You are not allowed to have friends or family join TFF for the main purpose of voting for you. This is a public poll so source of votes can be viewed.
If you wish, you may vote for yourself.

Winner will be awarded a neat "Tank of the Month Winner" banner in their 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

You are allowed to change your vote if you wish.
This poll will end on July 18 at 8:10 A.M (ET).

 

[GaryE]

So, hey, why not? Here is a tank that is in process.
I made it myself from IKEA glass shelving a few months ago, a project I enjoyed. The substrate is pool gravel, relatively rounded and small sized. It's that fine line between sand and gravel.

The tank is kept at 24c. It's filtered via sponges and a Lychee power filter, modified for all bio media.

As of last week, it has two Fluval plant lights on top, as I have finally decided to try to have a pretty tank. It's raw right now, with new plants that haven't taken off - Marsilea, Hygros, Rotala, red things (ahem) and swords, with guppy grass above. They were sourced via my aquarium club, from local aquarists.

The fish are Carnagiella myersi hatchets, cardinal tetras, Hyphessobrycon citrus, and Hoplisoma sp cw 027, probably brevirostris. I will reduce the stocking as soon as the fish in the 40 gallon below it have grown to sales size. That should be only a few weeks.

 

[gwand34 150]

This is one of my 20 gallon long black water tanks. It is home to a male A. cacatuoides and five juvenile offspring as well as 12 N. marginatus and 8 glowlight tetras. Pothos are growing hydroponically on the rim of the tank. A black sand substrate is planted with swords, anubias, cryptocornye and vallisineria. The tank is filter by a tidal 50 and AC 35. An Olushy 200 W heater keeps the tank at 79 degrees. Alder cones and almond leaves add tannins and a bronze color to the water.

 

[anewbie]

This is my 20 long which has quite a story to it so read on.

This aquarium has been setup for around 2 1/2 years - it has 20 to 30 green neon tetra 1 glow light tetra (that was mixed in the green neon) 10 to 15 pygmy cory and 3 true f1 nijjensi i bred from some wc parents.

It is one of those aquariums where you can take 10 pictures and think they were totally different aquariums and i posted a few of them here:

A few random pictures from the past week or so

2nd spawn:

www.fishforums.net

One reason it has so many green neon tetra is that well the first 10 hid from me and for more then a year i couldn't see them despite weekly water changes so i assumed they must have died and added 10 more... and another year passed and again i couldn't find a single one of them using a flash light so ..... and then one day i shined the light in and i saw one !!!! It was really exciting that one of them had lived - only a week later i saw TWO and hten i began to wonder and well.... it turns out just about all of them are in there somewhere hiding - guess how many you can find !

apistogramma nijjensi are pair forming and i put 2 f1 in there but i'm not sure if the female is a female or male pretending to be a female so i added a 2nd potential female. They are around 14 months old so should be getting close to adult hood - maybe another 2 to 4 months ? Sadly both parents decided they had a strong dislike for me and well jumped out one afternoon when i forgot to close the lid on their 29 - a rather rare thing for me as most species of apisto won't jump and i rarely leave the top open in the first place.

The aquarium temp is around 77 with some variance and ec around 20 - so rather soft and one would presume very acidic.

When i first set it up the frogbit quickly grew long roots and rooted into the substrate but then i added a bit of current 6 months later and that kind of broke the roots (i've had this happen before in relatively shallow tanks) but the frogbit was dense enough it forced the leaves out of the water into a more emersed form (leaves a bit more rigid).

Anyway it wouldn't hurt to thin them out a bit (the green neon tetra) but good luck finding them:

 

[MuddyWaters3]

Here is my 20 gallon river tank. My wave maker is on the blink, but normally it would be blowing right to left. It's supported by an FX 2.0 Fluval filter, so the flow is pretty good even without it. The rainbow shiners, white cloud mountain minnows and the Microdeviario Kubotai all love swimming in it. The stars of the show are the hillstream loaches. They have produced at least one that has survived to juvenile stage- might be more but I've only seen one at a time, so can't tell. I have buce & anubias plants in there with a handful of guppy grass I threw in yesterday to eat some nitrates- that is a temporary thing- thought to pull it out before taking the pic but I'm lazy
. I do have CO2, water stays at 6.7ph and is about 77 F. Would like a bit lower, but in the Summer it's hard to keep the temp down especially since the tank beside it is at 84 F.

 

[connorlindeman32 32]

Please scroll up as you review the four awesome entries, and then in the poll at the top of this thread, click on your choice for Tank of the Month. Be sure to click the CAST button to register your vote. Good luck to all our entrants.

 

[connorlindeman32 32]

MORE VOTES!

 

[connorlindeman32 32]

This is a close race!

 

[connorlindeman32 32]

Just two days until the poll closes. Get your last minute votes in before its too late!
Right now we are accepting entries for our July pet of the month contest.
Enter here -----> https://www.fishforums.net/threads/enter-now-july-2026-pet-of-the-month-contest.499903/