AGA 2017 World Ranking Announcement
As in year’s past, the success of the contest is dependent on the hard work of our esteemed panel of judges. Without their willingness to take time from their busy schedules to participate in our contest, our Aquascaping contest would not be the success it is today. For this year’s judges, we have returning as a judge, André Longarco from Aquabase Brazil, Kam Wong from Bubbles Aquarium Design Group of Hong Kong, and Shawn McBride from the Aquascaping Podcast of the US. We were also fortunate to have Marco Aukes judge our Dutch category again and through his instructive comments, the quality of the entries is improving. The AGA’s own Phil Edwards and Karen Randall also assisted with judging in the Biotope and Dutch categories. As the chair of the contest and a former judge, I cannot stress enough how thankful the AGA is to have these individuals judge our contest.
Our contest would not be the success it is without our contest sponsors. We had some outstanding companies support this year's contest including Seachem, Florida Aquatic Nurseries, Complete Aquatic Systems, and Aquarium Hobbyist Magazine. In addition to our corporate sponsors, we also had two clubs support this year’s contest, the Chicago Aquatic Plant Society and the Pittsburg Area Planted Aquarium Society. Thank you to our sponsors! Finally, I would like to thank Jen Williams for providing this year’s contest graphics, and to AGA Treasurer Greg. St. John, who did a lot of work in a short time bring our legalese and photo release up to current standards. And a huge thank you to Erik Olson our tech guru, who significantly simplified the entry process this year and who does all the behind the scenes work to ensure that the contest runs smoothly.
TOP 10 AGA 2017 Aquatic Garden, < 28L
This category is one of those that impressed me a lot. I love the ability of the aquascapers in such a small spaces. Let's miniaturize the world!!!
— André Longarco
Attention to details are amazing in this small category. Well done all!
— Kam Wong
TOP 10 AGA 2017 Aquatic Garden, 28L ~ 60L
This is my personal choice in matters of tank size. I love the 60 cm aquarium. In this edition of the contest the aquascapers of this category surprised me!!!! Let's Aquascape!!!
— André Longarco
TOP 10 AGA 2017 Aquatic Garden, 60L ~ 120L
Intermediate category where the aquascaper have the opportunity to create a bigger layout in a medium tank. The layout which present a good proposal and looks like bigger have great advantage over the others. The layouts evaluation were very hard and disputed.
— André Longarco
TOP 10 AGA 2017 Aquatic Garden, 120L ~ 200L
Very difficult category because the tank proportion choice is determinant to success of the job. Many layouts had a good idea but done in inadequately proportioned tank. But anyway we had very good layouts in this category.
— André Longarco
Another difficult category to judge as there were many strong contenders. Keep up the great layouts!
— Kam Wong
TOP 10 AGA 2017 Aquatic Garden, 200L ~ 320L
Another year with such high level designs in this category. Quite difficult to judge as the top 10 are so close in points. Keep up the great works!
— Kam Wong
Maybe one of the most difficult categories of the entire contest. Great works great skills. A true delight to the eyes and soul. Enjoy it!
— André Longarco
TOP 10 AGA 2017 Aquatic Garden, > 320L
The "Big Shot" category. Here there is no joking. Huge tanks great projects and a lot of talent. Surprise yourself.
— André Longarco
Heavy Weights of the competition... Hats off to all the great efforts on these massive layouts... Keep Aquascaping!!!
— Kam Wong
TOP 10 AGA 2017 Biotope Aquascape
There are some really fantastic biotope tanks this year and many others that were nearly as nice. Those of you in either of these groups should be congratulated for your efforts! However I am quite disappointed that over 20% of the entries in this category do not belong here at all. Some have nice "stories" about biotopes but then the tank does not follow through with the maker's biotope description. If you include plants that are clearly not native to the region of your "biotope" it is NOT a biotope. Likewise if you use a man-made color morph of an animal it is not a biotope as these animals are never found in nature.
— Karen Randall
I'd like to second what Karen said. There are some fantastic entries and some "Just about there" entries. Those of you in these groups; keep up the good work. Biotope aquariums require a lot of research and careful planning. They're not easy! Unfortunately there were many entries which were/are completely unsuited for this category. Being a Nature Aquarium in the style of ADA does not mean Biotope. Neither does using artificial color morphs of animals or plants that would not be found in the wild. Only wild-type species are acceptable for biotopes. Please take the time to read the guidelines for this category and do some research prior to entering next year.
— Phil Edwards
TOP 03 AGA 2017 Dutch Aquascape
In general I am glad to see that this category is showing more and more contestants that have a better understanding of the Dutch Style. If the current competitors put a bit more effort into some of the details of this style the overall competition might even come up with a winner from this category. Keep up the good work and hopefully we will see many of you back in the next year!
On disqualifications: The Dutch Style category is not a category where each tank that is neither a biotope nor Nature style can enter. Also people seem to misunderstand that Dutch Style is just a tank without hardscape material”. In fact most Dutch style tanks use hardscape as well but only to a limited extent. But the Dutch Style is more so much more than just that. Clear contrasts between groups of plants. Correct use of focal points. No excessive use of red plants. Variation in heights color and leaf shapes. Use of “streets” of plants combined with strong groups to create an additional sense of depth. Limitations to the amount of different plants used and no repetition of the same species. So many rules and guideliness and as such so many criteria that have to be ticked to qualify as a Dutch Style tank. We as judges were already extremely lenient when one or maybe even two criteria were not met. But with more boxes remaining unticked we had no other option to disqualify them. Having that said it does not mean that all of the DQ tanks are awful. Some of them are actually pretty nice. But they are NOT Dutch style and therefore had to be DQ'ed
— Marco Aukes
As some say "The Devil is in the details." The top entries this year came down to small details. I'm very pleased to see more people taking the time to practice the VERY specific techniques required of the Dutch style. I've always described this method of aquascaping as "A minute to learn a lifetime to master " and it's true. Keep up the effort folks you're helping this category continue to improve.
Sadly as with the biotopes there were a number of entries that had to be disqualified. It's a common misconception that aquascapes with minimal or no hardscape and the different species more or less grouped together is Dutch. That is not the case. These days there are a number of resources out there; including past winners of this category that will help teach the specifics. Even if you can't understand the language pictures can teach a lot!
— Phil Edwards
TOP 03 AGA 2017 Paludarium
From aquatic-gardeners.org
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