What a great year for the AGA International Aquascaping Contest! 2011 had a record number of entries, nearly doubling our previous best year. We had so many entries that we had to add extra categories, creating even more winners. As a bonus, the nano tanks got their own category this year which they surely deserve.

We also have a new award this year, the "Larry Lampert Most Innovative" award sponsored by Zoo Med Laboratories, Inc., to honor our recently departed friend and AGA President, Larry.

We had a fantastic judging panel to whom we are grateful: Karen Randall - USA, Oliver Knott - Germany, Inderjeet Singh Bansal - India, Luca Galarraga - Brazil, Drinda Jacobson - USA, and Phil Edwards - USA. Shout out to Phil who not only helped to solicit sponsors but also stepped in to judge the Biotope and Paludarium categories (for which he is imminently suited) when Drinda had a last-minute conflict. The judges worked very hard this year to get the results in on time due to the record number of entries and additional categories.

Thanks to our sponsors: Seachem, Zoo Med, Aquabid.com, Aquatic Eco-Systems, Kingfish Services, DFWAPC, Segrest Farms, and Fishchick Aquatics. We appreciate your generosity. Thanks also to the individuals who donated; Tomasz Sutkowski, Choong Yan, and Mark Briegel.

Erik Olson did a crack job of implementing the technical side of the contest for entry and judging. He also kept the judges focused and on time, and answered their many questions. This year he burned the midnight oil to re-code the contest web site so that it loads faster and has many new features. When viewing an entry, click on the main aquascape to load a slide show of the photos.

Erik had web design help from Amit S. Bapat. Thanks, Amit for helping to making the design clean and attractive. Bailin Shaw also helped Erik to round up those pesky photo releases.

Jen Williams created the beautiful web headers, banners, and ad in The Aquatic Gardener for this year's contest. Thank you, Jen, and good job as usual!

Last but not least, a big thank-you to the volunteers who helped to translate text and post about the contest online: Malay Biswas, Alexander Beshlega of aquaforum.ua, Alexandre Augusto of Aqualinea Aquarismo, Jordi Pelegri, Mirko Spalla, George Farmer of UKAPS, Kris Weinhold of GWAPA, Paul Byham, ArtMarine, Ricky Cain, Ole Pedersen, Tony Wong, Michael Wong, Daniel Gillberg, Hedson Hinojosa, and Luca Zivoli.

Cheryl Rogers
AGA Aquascaping Contest Chair

Comments

What an honor to participate in judging this contest. It has been a hard job deciding between all the amazing entries. So many were close in quality. Such talent is exhibited here! Congratulations to all the winners!
— Drinda Jacobson
There were so many entries (nearly double previous years') that the only sane option was to add two new categories and shuffle around the sizes. One side effect is that the increasingly-popular Nano aquascapes now have their own category!
— Erik
First of all I want to thank the opportunity to take part as a judge in such important contest was a great honor to me.
I was impressed with the number of inscriptions received this year. Was a lot of (pleasant) work and very difficult to choose in a range of wonderful works.
Aquascaping quality level is increasing year after year and the winners must be very proud of their aquariums in a such challenging competition!
Congratulations to all the participants hope to see you again next year!
— Luca Galarraga
Congratulation to all the participants! You do a real great job and it was really difficult to choose a favourite. It was a pleasure to see all your pieces of art!
— Oliver Knott
It just never gets any easier to judge this contest! Thank you all for the privilege of evaluating so many really beautiful aquascapes. Those of you who win should be very proud to do so with so many strong entries. For those of you who don't win don't feel bad. So many of the tanks in each category are worthy competitors it is very hard for us judges to choose!

Wonderful job everyone!
— Karen Randall
All the participants have put their best to create beautiful aquascapes. I have been enjoying every moment of my judging. Congratulation to all the winners. Hope those who didn't do well can learn from the winners and create better aquascapes next year Good luck.
— Inderjeet Singh Bansal

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