Germany breaks into the top10 in IAPLC almost 13 years ago (2005, World Ranking #10, by you know who!!), but since then, the aquascaping scenes in Germany are more skewed toward commercial activities than competitive aquascaping.
However, starting from the 2010s, we started to observe more focus being put into competitive aquascaping, layouts with more details and refinement, clearer themes and higher sophistication - everything that is required in the modern aquascaping contest.
Although Germany constantly has scapers breaking into top100 ranking in recent years, the average ranking for Germany as a nation seems stagnating between 100-200 ranks over the past 7-8 years, there is no clear trend can be observed whether they are going up or down.
Looking at layouts from Germany in recent years, they are not lacking of top notch aquascapers that can WOW the world, some of the top ranked tanks coming out from Germany recently are at such high level that if they were ranked in the top27 or top10, nobody would have complained! That is how good the German layouts are nowadays. In our opinion, what holding the Germans back from breaking out in this Nations Challenge, is quantity not quality. As a team event, Germany simply has to get more scapers that are capable of breaking into top100, not just 1 or 2 every year.
Average ranking of between 100-200 in the last 8 years with no obvious trend to be observed.
Excellent works from the current #1 German scapers: André Franken.
Strength and weakness
Individually Germany has world class scapers but to excel in the Nations Challenge, they need a full team (of 5) to contribute. A typically strong nation in everything they do, we still see huge potential from Germany once this hobby can become more popular and the awareness in aquascaping contest is being raised in the country.
Author: IAPLC Nations Challenge
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