🐠 TOTM VOTE NOW: October 2025 Tank of the Month Contest (17-30 US gallons)

[connorlindeman]

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Please Vote Now
We have 5 great tanks entered in Fishforums' October 2025 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.

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 October 17 at 6:40 P.M (ET).

 

[GaryE]

I don't usually worry about tanks over fish, but this is the first tank I ever made myself, out of IKEA shelving. It's 24 gallon/90 litre. It's an all around experiment, as I also made an undergravel filter (old school), and then to be very vintage put a 1980s powerhead that I bought from a guy who'd found it boxed in a barn sale. There's also a no name HOB filter that was cycled on another tank.
Fishwise, it has a mixed age group of Hoplisoma panda, and some juvenile Aphyosemion zygaima and Chromaphyosemion poliaki killies.
Plants - Bolbitis heudelotti, Anubias sp, and Vallisneria americana, with a few starting up pieces of java fern. There are also cuttings rooted from Bacopa and Rotala, though they are small.
The tank has been running for a few weeks, with a cycled Chinese no name HOB. The pool filter gravel was part of two other undergravel set ups that were well established.
The rocks are from the beach across the road, and the wood is from, umm, a hardwater tree. I think it's a piece I found while kayaking.

 

[JuliaAndFish co.]

This is my 30 gallon community tank, it's filtered by an unnamed hang on back filter, and its light is a Seaoura (I think thats how you spell it) full spectrum plant light. Ive got a bunch of plants species in there, as i take cuttings from literally anywhere i can. So far its got hygrophila corymbosa compact, anubias barteri, anubias nana, limnophyla sessiliflora, ozelot sword, rotala rotundifolia red, bacopa salzmanii purple in there somewhere, althernanthera reineckii pink, ceratopteris thalictroides, along with a couple others dotted around the tank.

Its stocked with a pick and mix as well, with 7 glowlight tetras, 6 or 7 neons, 3 rosy tetras, some sort of unidentified loach, 3 platies, 2 guppies, a small upside down catfish, some swordtail babies, a butterfly fish, 2 zebra danios, a rescue female empire gudgeon and a rescue siamese algae eater.

Thank you so much for reading and best of luck to the other entrants!

 

[connorlindeman]

Here is my 20-gallon long aquarium, stocked with 15 White Cloud Mountain Minnows that spawn regularly. This aquarium is unheated and gets a 25% WC once a week. It is filtered by an Aquaclear 20.
Current plant list:

• Java Fern
• Dwarf Hairgrass
• Pennywort 'Japan'
• Pennywort 'Brazil'
• Purple Riccens Floater
• Anubias Nana Petite
• Anubias Barteri Coffeefolia
• Ludwigia Super Red Mini
• Java Moss
• Juncus Repens
• Crypt Parva

The water is tinted by the large piece of Malaysian driftwood.
Substrate is miracle grow organic potting soil capped with a layer of black diamond blasting sand.

Verification photo on the way.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Well, I’ll throw this one in just for fun even though it’s kind of a mess. This is my 29 gallon Lake Inle Aquaponic Biotope. So far its only occupant is a three spot gourami named Snorri. Schools of Sawbwa resplendens and rosy loaches are ordered but haven’t come yet.

I once had a rather nice collection of green neocaridina shrimp. I trust that Snorri enjoyed them.

The only aquatic plants are Java moss and dwarf bamboo. Terrestrial plants include struggling tomatoes that might be rallying, Corsican mint that doesn’t seem likely to make it, thriving dwarf basil and wild flowers, and assorted, locally collected mosses and liverworts, kept moist by a pair of air stones.

Since I was unable to acquire an authentic island of matted vegetation and water hyacinths, I settled for a floating platform of polystyrene foam, painted with acrylic and held in place with bamboo stakes.

Other than that, we have some black sand, a bit of driftwood, an 200w heater,and an LED grow light held in place by a dowel scaffold, painted to look sorta like bamboo.

It’ll be more fun when the roots fill in more and I get more fish. I miss those little green shrimp. Stupid, hungry gourami.

 

[16gallontanker]

I have a 20 gallon standard size aquarium with lots of anubius and a red tiger lotus and some java Fern and some hornwort for fish I have a female Betta and a super red bristle nose pleco and some sterbai, albino and peppered corydoras and a few octocinclus catfish

 

[connorlindeman]

Please scroll up as you review the five 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.