VOTING BEGINS SOON!
Fishforums.net is proud to announce our 2025 TANK OF THE YEAR TOURNAMENT. We had 12 top notch winners over the last 12 months in our Tank of the Month Contests. We need your help to decide which tank is the best of the best! We are asking all members to vote for the tank that you feel deserves the title of 2025 TANK OF THE YEAR.
Prizes will be Amazon Gift Certificates
1st place will be awarded $100
2nd place will be awarded $50
3rd place will be awarded $25
This poll will open tomorrow at noon and will close at 12:00 PM (US) EST on Thursday, January 1st, 2026. Please do your part and cast your vote for 2025 TANK OF THE YEAR!
Please view all 12 entries before voting. Then go to the poll at the top of this thread, click on your choice and then click the cast button. No comments about specific entries are allowed. Fishforums.net thanks you for your participation in our contests.
Entrants, 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. You are allowed to vote for yourself (some do some don’t). This is a public poll so source of votes can be viewed. Our goal is to have an honest and fair poll for all participants.
You are allowed to change your vote if you wish.
Good luck to our 12 entrants. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to all our fine members.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
gwand - January 2025 TOTM
20 gallon long South American jungle tank. Trying for a natural, wild look not decorative aquascaping.
Fluval digital heater
Aquaclear 30 HOB filter and sponge filter
Pair Apistogramma cacatuoides orange flash and fry
4 dwarf red coral Platy
6 yellow Tiger endlers
Amazon swords, dwarf Sagittaria, Anubias, Java fern and cryptocoryne wentii
Black sand substrate, coconut caves, river rock, moss ball and cholla
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CassCats - February 2025 TOTM
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.
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Crunchycrouton - March 2025 TOTM
This is my 4.9 gallon UNS aquarium. It’s my first co2 tank and it’s home to 5 cherry and rilli shrimp. It runs off of a diy co2 system, the fzone brand, and the lighting is an ONF flat nano. This aquarium is one of my smallest planted aquariums, and one of my favorites. The carpeting plant is dwarf baby tears, the other plants are Ludwigia super red, nesaea, and hydrocotyle. This tank has been up and running for around 3 months.
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MattW - April 2025 TOTM
This is my 90L tank (23Gal). It was set up at the end of January last year and is home to my group of Sawbwa resplendens along with some Amano shrimp. Equipment includes a simple canister filter, a Sponge filter, 100W heater, Chihiros B60 and a small pump for extra water flow. Feeding is usually once a day, using Bug bites and the occasional frozen copepods. Water changes are minimal nowadays compared to when first set up, & every week or two, I pick at the thread algae and scrape the glass just to tidy the tank up. As for the plants.. There are too many to list here,
so I'll do an updated list on the Tanks Journal at a later date. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching its progression since setup.------------------------------------
WhistlingBadger - May 2025 TOTM
I first set up this tank in October 23, after a failed attempt to do a similar setup in a 30g. This is a semi-biotope tank, in which I attempt to capture the feeling of a hillstream in my two favorite tea-growing regions: The Darjeeling-Nepal foothills, and the Yunnan mountains of China. Though several hundred miles apart, these two regions have extremely similar natural environments and share many of the same aquatic plants and fish species.
Since most of the native fish from these regions are either impossible to find in the hobby or far too large and active for a 55g, I borrowed some closely related species from just over the hill in Myanmar.
This is a Walstad style setup; fairly low-tech, no filtration except sponge prefilters to keep gunk out of the pumps. Plants provide the biological filtration. No heater.
Physical setup:
*A fairly ancient 55 gallon tank which I refurbished and resealed. That is a story in itself; suffice it to say it was meant to be.
*Background and land area carved from blue insulation foam, painted with Drylok and concrete pigment.
*a 400 gph pump powering the waterfall and watering the land area, and a 350 gph (soon to be upgraded) pulling water through a river tank manifold to provide current and aeration.
*Play sand substrate; driftwood and rocks from the overflow channel of the friendly local mountain creek.
*Fluvial Aquasky 36" LED fixture, supplemented by a 19" Seoura LED stick to light up the back cave.
*A cheapo fog maker hidden in the waterfall, to keep the emergent plants damp and provide a sense of mystery...
Stocking:
1 Firebelly toad (Bombina orientalis), named Boso, which is Nepali for "chubby". I think I finally figured out how to keep these guys happy and non-vanishing, so more might be on the way soon. I like them a lot.
15 Choprae danios AKA glowlight danios (Celestichthys choprae)
4 Padamya barbs AKA Odessa barbs (Penthia padamya). More currently in quarantine.
5 Reticulated hillstream loach (Sewellia lineolata)
10 Himalayan sand loach (Nemacheilus corica)
1 Scarlet Badis (Dario dario)
5 (?) Amano shrimp (Caridina multidentata)
Ramshorn and pond snails
Terrestrial springtails and isopods
Aquatic plants:
Various cryptocoryns. I have at least five different kinds, providing a variety of color, size and texture.
Anubias coffeefolia, emergent, attempting to simulate tea plants
Anubias barteri, currently blossoming!
Land Plants:
Himalayan maidenhair fern (Adiantum venustum)
Dwarf bamboo (Poaceae sp.)
Liverwort (Conocephalum salebrosum)
Various mosses from Asia and North America
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Bluebubbles - June 2025 TOTM
This is my new planted 10 gallon shrimp tank!
It’s home to around a dozen fire red cherry shrimps
I set this tank up almost 3 weeks ago for my shrimp who were in a 5 gallon. It’s heated (Around 24 degrees Celsius) and filtered. The cycled filter from their 5 gallon was transferred to this one so it’s cycled. I use a medium strength light and no co2.
This is my first time using a soil substrate and I’m loving how the scape turned out. I can’t wait to see the plants grow in!
Plants include Annubius and Java fern which I’ve had for over a decade now! They started as a little leaf and have how produced so many new bunches!
There’s also some Wisteria, Mermaid weed, Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig', Monte carlo, Moss, Duck weed and Red root floaters.
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anewbie - July 2025 TOTM
This is my 29 gallon a. wolli aquarium. It has an ec of 37 and temp of 77. It has been setup for approx 18 months still in the newbie stage compared to aquariums setup for 10 or 20 years...
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It has a lot of residence and you can see many of them if you look closely. It also has a lot of plants and you can see a few of them but some are hidden.
In the forground you can see 1 of the young a. wolli right center near the leaf. In the back you see a bunch of n. marliyn weaving in and out of the plants. There are some larger a. wolli in the back but they rarely show themselves (once a month if you are lucky) and a few otto. Lots of species of plants including corck screw val and various smaller echinodorus including a fancy twist on right center front and cut off but a small remi on the left front. The stem plant you see back left center and front left corner is ludwigia red skeleton (nice plant) In the left back to right covering driftwood the buce you see was sold as silver powder and if you look closely you can see a bloom or two. There might be something buried by the leaf in the back but i don't think so. Also there is quite a bit of drift wood buried in there. The glare in the lower left is from the discus aquarium - sorry about that but the discus are too temperamental to have their light turned off and on. Last time i pissed them off they wouldn't eat for 2 weeks.
Enjoy !
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Aharries - August 2025 TOTM
This is a Fluval Roma 125. I removed all the trim as I wanted a 'rimless' tank (was initially worried about whether some essential structural elements had been removed along with the trim, but it's been fine). Current scape is about 2 years old.
Fish:
A pair of pearl gourami (1 male, 1 female)
Approx 9 green neon tetra
Approx 12 ember tetra
3 lambchop rasbora
Approx 5 otocinclus
Approx 5 amano shrimp
Plants:
Vallisneri in the back
Hygrophila polysperma
Java fern (not doing so well)
Loads of anubias
Amazon frogbit on the surface
I don't bother with ferts as I've chosen slow-growing plants and am happy to see how they grow with minimal input from me.
The lighting I got from Amazon. I have no idea what the watts, etc., are.
Filtration is an external cannister filter with Biohome Ultra. The flow is kept on the surface for oxygen exchange, etc., but I don't want too much movement of water within the tank itself, as the gourami prefer sluggish, slow-moving water.
I feed them every day with micropellets.
Regarding maintenance, I perform partial water changes once or twice a week, and that's about it, aside from occasionally cleaning the glass. We had an algae outbreak a few months ago, but decided to let it play out and see what happened (it went away after a while).
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Abaddon - September 2025 TOTM
Here is my little *slightly overgrown* jungle gem
It's only 2 months old, so it's still figuring itself out but I'm quite happy with it so far. The plants are quite healthy & pearling even though I don't supplement with CO2.Size: ~8 gallons
Filtration: small internal turbine filter (~400l/h) + dense sponge, no aeration
Lighting: single LED lamp (rgb, 1050 lumens), 7 hrs a day
Substrate: 100% porous lava rock (very thin layer since the tank is mounted on the wall & I wanted to reduce the weight as much as possible while retaining a large surface area for the biofilter)
Decor: 2 pieces of driftwood (completely taken over by the plants at this point, but I promise they're there
)Plants: anubias, Java fern, hornwort, an assortment of mosses, water sprite, water wisteria, salvinia, 2 stray ludwigia stems that have actually decided to put down roots and grow, marimo balls, bucephalandra, pearl weed, bolbitis.
Inhabitants: a small group of (mostly juvenile) barred topminnows (Quintana atrizona), White Pearl shrimp & pink ramshorns. Lots of hitchhiker snails too, plus some seed shrimp.
Maintenance: ~30% WC every week, daily fertilizer (microelements + potassium & magnesium), feeding 2 x day (powdered dry foods, micro worms, frozen cyclops, freeze-dried daphnia, baby brine shrimp). Once a week I supplement with a shrimp stick that everyone nibbles on (it has bee pollen, peppermint and a variety of plant & algae extracts).
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JuliaAndFish co. - October 2025 TOTM
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.
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FishBR - November 2025 TOTM
Hi everyone, here is my low-tech 75 gallon rainbowfish tank. I upgraded my 55 gallon to a 75 gallon last August and added a few fish. The fish stocking includes 8 Kali Tawa rainbows, 2 yellow rainbows (M. herbertaxelrodi), 2 deepwater creek rainbows (M. Splendida), 2 Ajamaru rainbows (M. ajamaruensis), 2 turquoise rainbows (M. lacustris), 1 Maccullochi rainbow (M. maccullochi "Stark River"), 10 candy cane tetras, 8 harlequin rasboras, 4 panda garras, 1 apistogramma cacatuoides, and 1 super red bristlenose pleco. Water parameters: PH 7.8, hard water (last time I checked, GH was 209 and KH 152) and temperature of 77F (25C). I use Flourish Tabs for fertilization and black diamond blasting sand as substrate. The lighting is a Fluval Plant 3.0 LED and the filtration includes a Fluval 407 canister and a sponge filter. I change 50% of the water every weekend and I feed the fish twice a day.
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f_luxus - December 2025 TOTM
15 Gallons with Heterandria formosa and some Neocaridina shrimps. Light only, no filter or CO2. Medium hard water, pH round about 7.
I use a bit N-K fertiliser and root caps.
I only add iron if the floating plants show a deficiency.
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