AGA 2018 World Ranking Announcement
As in past contests, the success of the contest is dependent on the hard work of our esteemed panel of judges. Many of our judges take time from their other obligations at work and home to judge in our contest. Without their willingness to judge the entries, our aquascaping contest would not be the success it is today. For this year’s judges in the aquatic gardens, we have returning as a judge, Andre Longarco from Aquabase Brazil, Jeff Miotke and Karen Randall from the United States, and Xiaozhuang Wong from Singapore. We were also fortunate to again have Marco Aukes judge our Dutch category again along with the AGA’s own Phil Edwards and Karen Randall. And something new for this year, Cara Wade volunteered her expertise to help judge the Biotope and Paludarium categories in collaboration with Karen and Phil. 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, Ultum Nature Systems, and Nature Art LiuYong. In addition to our corporate sponsors, we again had the Chicago Aquatic Plant Society sponsor the contest and Bernat Hostas donate to the contest as individual supporter. And finally, Amazonas is supporting this year’s contest as the media sponsor. Without all the support provided by these companies, individuals and clubs, our contest would not be nearly as successful!
Comments
t is always a great honor and a huge pleasure to be part of jury of this awesome and so important contest. This year I had a lot of fun and learned so much with all layouts and aquascapers. Thank you so much for the honor and opportunity! Great energies from Brazil. Namaste.
— André Longarco
We saw some really amazing work this year. Thank you all for sharing your tanks! If there is a word of advise I can give overall it is to edit. As the quality of aquascapes has increased over the years we are seeing a trend to make layouts more and more complicated in an effort to stand out. Look at your work critically. Make sure that every aspect is important to your vision. Tight editing makes all types of art more impactful!
— Karen Randall
It is my pleasure to be on the judging committee this year. I see plenty of good works and am glad that AGA has quite a few different categories and tank sizes so that more works can be represented. As aquascaping competitions evolve the trend has generally been towards ever increasing hardscape complexity. While having technical hardscape work can be impressive plant usage and health are also important factors that should not be neglected. Consequently aesthetics is often more affected by overall composition; play on open/negative spaces interaction between key focal points - than by sheer amount of complex detail squeezed into a particular aquascape. I thank contestants for all their hard work; your contribution to this competition and the aquascaping world is invaluable ~
— Dennis Wong
Over the years I've watched styles and skills evolve in this contest and 2018 is no exception: the entries in Paludarium and Biotope this year show a continuing progression in talent with an intriguing range of vision and designs. It is an honor to be involved in the judging process of such work.
— Cara Wade
TOP 10 AGA 2018 Aquatic Garden, < 28L
One of the most difficult categories. The proportions between hardscape plants and fishes are very important. In this case yes "size matters".
— André Longarco
Amazing creations in such a small space.
— Jeff Miotke
Some of the tanks in this category this year are pushing the limits of what can be done in a very tiny volume of water. I really enjoy seeing these incredible miniatures. However they are NOT appropriate habitats for animals especially fish. Even if they are only put in "for the photo" to me this is inappropriate and must be marked harshly as a result. Enjoy and share your tiny tanks but leave the fish out of them!
— Karen Randall
TOP 10 AGA 2018 Aquatic Garden, 28L ~ 60L
This is one of my favourites categories. The great challenge is to create a natural atmosphere with the right proportion in such a small space. Great works!!!
— André Longarco
I LOVE the sense of depth and size many of you have achieved in these small tanks. When judging them I had to keep reminding myself how small the tanks are!!!
— Karen Randall
TOP 10 AGA 2018 Aquatic Garden, 60L ~ 120L
Intermediate category that surprised me. Interesting that the smaller tanks were generically speaking more successful than the biggest. Great layouts and so much talent indeed.
— André Longarco
I definitely agree with Andre... there were some amazing works in this category! Well done!
— Karen Randall
TOP 10 AGA 2018 Aquatic Garden, 120L ~ 200L
Unique and bold layouts defined this year's 120 to 200L category.
— Jeff Miotke
As usual this category show us the best of worldwide aquascaping. So much detail nuances and talent. It is a delightful to evaluate such intense works. In this edition the details dictated the rules.
— André Longarco
Just a wonderful category. Very difficult ranking tanks of this caliber when so many are nearly perfect technically.
— Karen Randall
TOP 10 AGA 2018 Aquatic Garden, 200L ~ 320L
This category was extremely competitive. So many different styles and interesting layouts.
— Jeff Miotke
Most of the time this category shows us the best aquascapes. This year it was not different. Strong layouts different styles and a lot of quality. Colorful aquariums set the tone of the category!!! I loved it!
— André Longarco
What more is there to say? Too many beautiful tanks to choose from. You all make our job very difficult!!!
— Karen Randall
TOP 10 AGA 2018 Aquatic Garden, > 320L
This year that category impressed me a lot. So many powerful layouts and a lot of skills and passion involved. Good for eyes and good for soul. In my opinion in this year this category was the Formula One of entire contest. Congratulations.
— André Longarco
So many breathtaking layouts. Thank you for creating these masterpieces and sharing them with us.
— Jeff Miotke
Beautiful work. Another wonderful category. I love that this contest allows us to judge scapes of similar size against each other. It's difficult enough this way!
— Karen Randall
TOP 10 AGA 2018 Biotope Aquascape
We saw some really exceptional biotope tanks this year with careful attention to detail and the ability to draw us right into the scene. That said while nano tanks are fun I do not think they are appropriate for biotope tanks. Already by definition a biotope tank is a "nano" version of the real thing. Don't try to miniaturize it even more please!
— Karen Randall
TOP 03 AGA 2018 Dutch Aquascape
We keep on noticing yearly progress in the category but still many entries suffer from either plant-collectoritis (too many species) or red-plant-fetish (way too many strong red plants in the aquascape which makes you lose focus).
Also when you enter for the Dutch Style you need to focus on contrast between your plant groups. They need to be clearly different than the plants next to it in color height leaf shapes etc.
And what can I say; just look at the champion in this category and what he has done in his 3.10 cm tank. Contrast all the way from left to right great sense of depth and most of all: a true example of Dutch Style Aquascaping.
— Marco Aukes
While Marco is absolutely right in his comments about the entries I have to say I am pleased with the improvement we are seeing in this category. While most entries still have some obvious flaws I can see a real effort to learn about and practice this style of tank.
When we started the biotope category few entries were good. Now there are many really great ones. I hope that people will continue to take this category seriously learn from the Dutch masters and we will over time continue to see even more of the progress we have seen in the last few years! Keep up the good work!
— Karen Randall
TOP 03 AGA 2018 Paludarium
We saw some stunning paludariums this year but also had to DQ WAY too many tanks. A Wabi Kusa pretty as it may be is not a paludarium. Neither is a terrarium with a small water feature or a bowl with a few plants sticking out the top. There are lots of fun ways to use aquarium and terrarium plants. But a paludarium is a specific type of tank with significant emphasis placed on both the emersed and submersed areas of the tank.
— Karen Randall
From aquatic-gardeners.org
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