Vietnam at IAPLC 2026: Two Top 7 Awards, 29 Top 300 Places.

10 October 2026

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Vietnam has plenty to celebrate at IAPLC 2026. Ha Le Trinh wins the Gold Prize at world rank 2, while Minh Toan Nguyen earns a Bronze Prize at rank 6. Together, they give Vietnamese aquascaping two places among the contest’s seven leading awards—and two striking aquariums for the international community to discover.

Vietnam at IAPLC 2026: Two Top 7 Awards, 29 Top 300 Places.

The results, announced on October 10, 2026, also reveal strength further down the ranking. Vietnam has five works in the Top 27, thirteen at ranks 1–100 and twenty-nine at ranks 1–300, according to our count of the official list.

For the Vietnamese aquascaping community, this is an occasion to celebrate the leading awards and recognise the wider group of creators represented in this season’s results. Behind every name is an individual work that deserves a closer look.

Vietnam’s IAPLC 2026 results at a glance

Ranking band	Vietnamese works
Top 7	2
Top 27	5
Ranks 1–100	13
Ranks 1–300	29

The bands overlap: the two Top 7 works are included in the five Top 27 places, and so on. These figures count ranked works, rather than Vietnam’s total submissions.

Within the Top 27, Vietnam has the second-largest representation by country, behind China’s six places. In the 1–100 band, Vietnam’s thirteen places are also second by country, after Japan’s twenty-two. These are comparisons of this season’s published results, calculated by AquaLibs.

Ha Le Trinh: Gold Prize for Fallen Genesis

Fallen Genesis gives Vietnam its highest finish of the season. The photograph draws the viewer into a shaded woodland setting, where substantial roots and trunks are connected by finer branches and a varied carpet of green growth.

Its depth develops through partial openings. Rather than revealing the entire background, the hardscape offers glimpses of brighter water between darker structures. The fish remain clearly visible across the lower middle, adding colour and movement to the spaces between the roots.

This result also belongs to a longer competition journey. Ha Le Trinh’s recorded IAPLC history includes seventh place in 2022 and fifteenth in 2025. The 2026 Gold Prize gives readers a compelling reason to revisit those earlier works and compare how the creator handles space, planting and light across different seasons.

Explore Ha Le Trinh’s AquaRank profile and revisit the AquaLibs IAPLC 2025 gallery.

Minh Toan Nguyen: a Bronze Prize for Adrift

At world rank 6, Adrift provides another memorable image of Vietnamese aquascaping on the international stage. Dark trunks frame a bright opening near the upper centre, while overlapping branches and fallen wood carry the composition towards the foreground.

The fish school occupies the shaded middle-left, where its blue-red markings remain distinct against the timber. Fine planting connects the wood to the ground without obscuring the principal structures. Compared with Fallen Genesis, the more exposed bright opening gives the viewer a different route into the scene.

Minh Toan Nguyen is already familiar with IAPLC’s leading positions: the AquaRank archive records second-place finishes in 2018 and 2021. Adrift adds a new Top 7 result to that history and offers another work to compare with the creator’s earlier aquariums.

Open Minh Toan Nguyen’s AquaRank profile to explore the recorded results and available photographs.

Five Vietnamese works in the Top 27

Alongside the two leading awards, Minh Tran at rank 13, Quan Nguyenquang at rank 15 and Vo Truong Nghia at rank 16 complete Vietnam’s five Top 27 places. All three positions fall within IAPLC’s Honor Prize range.

These works deserve attention in their own right. For readers exploring the season, ranks 13, 15 and 16 offer a useful next stop after the Top 7: open each photograph at full size, follow its route through the foreground and look at where plants and fish contribute to the sense of space.

The breadth of the result matters. Vietnam’s presence near the top of the list extends across several individual creators, giving the community more works to celebrate, discuss and share.

All 29 Vietnamese names at ranks 1–300

The following list preserves the names and rank positions published in the official IAPLC results. Links open AquaRank profiles that we have verified for this article.

IAPLC 2026 world rank	Vietnamese aquascaper
2	Ha Le Trinh
6	Minh Toan Nguyen
13	Minh Tran
15	Quan Nguyenquang
16	Vo Truong Nghia
28	Duy Anh Nguyen
40	Minh Ngoc
49	Hieu Nguyen Trung
59	Tran Hoang Son
65	Duong Le Trieu
67	Pham Duc Manh
87	Ty Nguyen Thanh
99	An Doan Huu
105	Dinh Minh Khoi
115	Hoai Tran Thanh
142	Dan Vo Truong Thanh
148	Xuan Truong Pham
150	Quang Dinh
161	Duc Thinh Tran
168	Trung Phan
179	Long Tran Hoang
184	Binh Duong Chi
188	Duc Kien Pham
194	Thai Son Nguyen
196	To Tien Dat
280	Hoang Ngoc Nam
285	Duong Nguyen Dai
288	Minh Tran Dang
289	Quang Truong Dinh

Each name is an invitation to discover another aquarium. Looking beyond the leading awards gives readers a fuller view of Vietnam’s contribution to the season and creates opportunities to support creators whose work they may be seeing for the first time.

Follow the people behind the results on AquaRank

The announcement gives us a snapshot of one season. AquaRank helps readers explore the competition journeys behind it, connecting recorded results across years and contests with individual aquascaper profiles.

Start with the creators linked above. Compare earlier finishes, browse available works and return to photographs that reward a second viewing. Participants can also use AquaRank’s profile claim process to identify their records and submit missing achievements or corrections with supporting evidence.

For the newly revealed photographs, visit the official IAPLC gallery; the complete IAPLC 2026 world ranking provides the authoritative results.

Congratulations to Vietnam’s award winners, the twenty-nine creators represented at ranks 1–300 and every Vietnamese participant who contributed to this season. Their results give the community reasons to celebrate; their aquariums give fellow aquascapers something to study, discuss and remember.

Which Vietnamese IAPLC 2026 work would you like to see explored next? Share its rank, tag its creator and tell us what caught your eye.

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