ADA International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest 2010: Top 10 Tanks

Well, these are a little late, but it doesn't look like any higher quality images are going to surface any time soon, so these will have to make do. These are the top 10 aquascapes in this year's ADA International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest. The "miniature forest" theme has really taken off in popularity with two different iterations in the top 10 this year. I personally like them a lot with position 5 being my personal favorite. What's yours?

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

9th

10th

IAPLC 2010 Aqua Design Amano Nature Aquarium Party Video

Going to the official IAPLC party every October is the dream of many aquascapers, and Jeff Senske of ADG was fortunate enough to go to this year's events. Lucky for us, he's made a video of the highlights, which include the party and award ceremony, iwagumi contest, Takashi Amano's gigantic home aquascape, a visit to the ADA gallery, and some rock collecting. The iwagumi contest is a testament to these aquascapers' genius and Amano's home aquascape are just amazing in size and beauty. Pay close attention for the new plant, dwarf hydroctyle, in the gallery aquascapes. I can't wait to get that plant here! You won't want to miss this video.

Pavel Bautin's First Place 2010 IAPLC Aquascape

The 2010 IAPLC embargo end is just 2 days away and images from the aquascaping contest are already beginning to leak out. Several sites have already published some of the top aquascapes (although most of the pictures are horribly grainy and clearly poor scanning jobs), but Pavel Bautin has released a high quality image of his first place aquascape on his own website. The tank is quite different and the use of differing sizes of "tree trunks" for forced perspective works very well. Congratulations again to Pavel, and I'll post the top 10 aquascapes from the ADA contest as soon as I can find high quality images.

IAPLC 2010 Aquascape #134 Released

"Tamo daleko" by Slobodan Lazarevic of Serbia, #134 2010 IAPLC

And so it begins. After IAPLC rankings are published, there's always a slow trickle of entries released ahead of the ADA Party in October. Technically, contestants aren't supposed to publish their entries until the party is over as part of the contest terms, but "Octopus" has released his entry into the IAPLC 2010 contest early. Another of the up-and-coming Eastern European aquascapers, "тамо далеко," which Google roughly translates as "Far There," is a captivating aquascape. The aquascape ranked 134th out of over 1000 entries and uses rock very effectively to create a narrow pass up the center of the tank. One of the best parts of this aquascape in my opinion is the lighting, looking amazingly like the soft light of early morning. The only thing I don't like about this particular photo is the reflection off the surface of the water, since it takes away from the whole mountain-scape feeling. You can find a full list of flora and fauna in a post on APC.

IAPLC 2010 World Rankings Announced

Where the River Begins - Pavel Bautin

Although there aren't any pictures of the winning aquascapes that I've found yet (the aquascape above is just one of the winner's other aquascapes), the world rankings for the International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest have been published. Congratulations to Pavel Bautin from Russia for being ranked number one! It's a bit of a shock to see someone from a country where aquascaping isn't traditionally as big as it is in other Asian countries place first, but the win, along with some great rankings for Polish and Ukranian aquascapers really shows how the hobby is taking off in Eastern Europe and Russia. Pavel Bautin does have a gallery of his aquascapes for his aquarium design company, and he is very talented. They look wild and full of life, and if his contest winning entry followed the same line, it's easy to see how he won.

The U.S. and U.K. rankings are few and far between, so get some ideas and get planning for next year's IAPLC!