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

[connorlindeman]

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Please Vote Now
We have 5 great tanks entered in Fishforums' September 2026 Tank of the Month contest featuring tanks sized at 16 US gallons and smaller! 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 September 18 at 9:15 P.M (ET)

 

[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.

 

[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 .

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[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.