The Aquatic Gardeners Association is pleased to announce the results for the 2017 International Aquascaping Contest. The contest had a record breaking number of entries this year with over 600 aquascapes submitted to the various categories, making the work of the judges very difficult. And like last year, nearly all of the categories in this year’s contest had record participation, in particular the 120L-200L category that had a nice jump in numbers.
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.
So, without further ado, enjoy the aquascapes!
Bailin Shaw
AGA Contest Chair
Sponsors
