Congratulations Zig

Fair play man. The ADA only a couple of months ago and now Two firsts. outstanding results for 2008. I'm sure you have raised quite a few eyebrow the world over.
The first time i got a glimpse of your mountainscape design i was blown away. It seems the competition judges were to.
)

Haha keeping it quiet because of threads like this!!

Hey thanks lads wasn't expecting this, been down country the last couple of days away from the big smoke no mobile phones no computers (and boy did I miss them!!)

Well yes these were my *controversial* win/s at AGA 2008.


I won these at the beginning of November a couple of months ago. This is a yearly competition held by the Aquatic gardeners association which is based in the USA but it has a worldwide membership, one of these tanks is the same tank that did well for me at the ADA competition a month or so earlier but its sort of normal for people to enter the same tank into this competition as well, you can enter three different layouts into AGA only one into ADA, I entered two for AGA this year.

Both of these aquascapes are very similar as you may have noticed one is really based on the other. I had done the smaller tank first and then went on and did the other one for ADA 2008. Anyway I genuinely thought that I had entered them both into the same small tank catagory in the competition, the cutoff point for entries in that catagory I thought were for tanks under 100l, so I figured, well if the judges don't like one they may like the other haha, and if I was lucky enough I may win a prize for one of them in that section. Anyway the cutoff point was actually 70l but I didn't know that when I entered because the entry guidelines which have now been taken down from the website were a bit confusing. Anyway both tanks are under 100l but they were entered automatically into 2 different catagories one into the small tank catagory (under 70l) and one in the medium tank catagory over 70l, I didn't know this at the time. One tank is 54l and the other 97l.

So when the results day came around I looked up the AGA website (only way to check they don't tell you in advance if you have won or not) and I looked in the small tank catagory and saw that I had won but not with the tank I was expecting would do well and I couldn't find the other entry, so I said wheres the other one?? and then I found the other one in a different catagory altogether and they had both won!! *SHOCK* I said that can't be right until it dawned on me that 70l was the cutoff point. Anyway there was no gameplan on my behalf tbh. It p****ed off a few people and some of them they told me so, I shouldn't have gotten two firsts. haha, sore losers, but sure what can I do, I can only enter the tanks I cant pick the winners even if I had done it on purpose. I thought it was a bit silly myself giving both tanks first place in two different catagories when they look so similar but thats what the judging panel came back with.

I would have only entered one tank if I had know they were both going into different catagories but I didn't read the rules correctly.

Aw well always next year, live and learn and all that.

Thanks everyone sorry about the long winded reply!!

Peter

derek wrote:

well done again, zig.
i was just wondering if it is possible to have a half decent planted tank without the co2?

Hiya Derek

Derek it is possible but it will limit your plant choices though with no CO2. Even a low light tank with easy plants will do so much better with CO2 addition.

You can always use a liquid carbon substitute as well instead of CO2 from a cylinder but this will be limiting as well and not as good as using real CO2 from a cylinder, but it can be a good alternative to none at all especially for low-medium light tanks. A liquid substitute would be Seachem Excel or Easylife easycarbo, both products not sold in any Irish LFS to my knowledge.

But yes definitely possible..

Im growing out a nice easy low light tank atm but I am using CO2.

Anyone that was sore about you winning two firsts would be better to start looking at their own tanks - they are just jealous. Are they thinking the if you only got one frst, they might get the other, but if that is their logic it is grossly flawed as it proves that your tank was better in the first place.

So to the sore losers may they have lots of snails for 2009.


Daragh

Congratulations Zig on producing such wonderful tanks, best of luck for 2009 !!!
Andrew

hi peter

I was wondering what you think of George Farmer being on the panel

I mean he would obviously know yours
and Dan Crawfords entries amongst others,
but i suppose this could happen with any judges

for the record i prefer the smaller tank
its stunning what you did with a rekord 60
and creating that amazing depth
(you'd want to see mine! its grim!)

rgds

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amazing that amano is one of the judges.. brilliant stuff!
well done

thanks for the reply peter, the reason i asked is because i would love to have a planted natural looking tank for shrimp even half as good as yours, but am reluctant to use co2 and fire extinguishers etc.

fourmations wrote:

hi peter

I was wondering what you think of George Farmer being on the panel

I mean he would obviously know yours
and Dan Crawfords entries amongst others,
but i suppose this could happen with any judges

for the record i prefer the smaller tank
its stunning what you did with a rekord 60
and creating that amazing depth
(you'd want to see mine! its grim!)

rgds

4

The AGA competition has a history of using well known hobbyists each year as judges, they usually have a panel of four judges, they will usually have at least one hobbyist on the panel, this is a good idea IMHO, they change this person each year. They have used some very well known hobbyists in past competitions so it may be hard for me not to know these people because I probably know most people in the hobby at this stage and Im sure they would know me. George is high profile within the hobby and thats why he was chosen as judge. None of us knew who the judges were until the results were announced. George did not tell anybody.

To win any of these competitions with only four judges you would still need to score highly with all of the judges I would imagine, in larger competitions like ADA where there are sixteen judges you would still need an average high score across the board to win but you could score very low with some judges and still win because the averages would be better.

hi zig

i felt funny about posting that comment after i had reread it,
in case it looked like I was implying anything,

it was really about the impossibility of anonimity,

is there any rules about keeping the scapes under wraps,
you could have guys on forums posting up their entries
while they scape them and so on, meaning that you can put
a name to the entries before they are entered,

anyway, whats on the cards this year,
will you be entering the competitions?

regards

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