Comments from Aquascaper at AQ

I would like to share some of the comments from fellow Aquascaper at AQ. It was difficult to understand at first but after some discussion, I got the idea. It is very constructive comments that make me think way to improve my scape in near futhure.

Thank you guys.

Jacian:
1. The 2 very visible wood are poking out at the 2 corner, making the setup bit too symmetrical.
2. The top is flat and monotone.
3. The fish seems too small for the setup, hardly visible.
4. I like the base where we can see some wood/moss protruding out which created some depth. Can have more of such.
5. The hairgrass at the 2 corners seems a bit out of place to me, especially on the right one where looks like a standalone patch of hairgrass.

StanChung:
1. Impression could be better. Dynamism/boldness. This because one look and I would feel I've seen it already.[There's a past honor prize with M pteropus needle leaf island layout]. A note about Island setups. They're very hard to make dynamic, it's a very static layout. If you look at the previous M pteropus needle leaf layout, it had very nice gnarly texture wood base with lots to see and nice wavy M pteropus needle leaf. This help greatly to create the impression of flow and break up the static look of island setups.
2. I'm not going into detail about the minor items about your layout as you can already spot them yourself and most of it already mentioned by Jacian. They are important as they are the finishing touches.
3. My last mention would be to always have decently large thickets of plants. The few strands of M pteropus needle leaf makes the tank look new.

Beach Forest - IAPL Contest 2008 rank 420/1170

This is what my tank look a like, it is look better than last year tank. I'm rank 420 out of 1170 participants, great improvement from last year rank 869. Will work harder and to do better for next year. In fact, I already started my new tank. It is 3ft tank this time.

Title: Beach Forest
Tank Dimension (LxWxH): 60 x 30 x 36cm

Lighting: 55 Watts

CO2: 2 bps with external reactor
Substrate: Europet fine riversand

Flora: Microsorium pteropus 'Windelove', Microsorium pteropus 'Needle', Anubias barteri var nana 'Petite', Eleocharis parvula, Fissidens fontanus, Taxiphyllum sp.
Fauna: Trigonostigma espei, Caridina multidentata, Neocaridina heteropoda var. red

IAPL Contest 2008 result

Today is the day where all the Aquascaper around the world waiting for, International Aquatic Plants Layout (IAPL) Contest 2008 result. I'm rank 420, not a bad result though I miss my target by 20. Nothing to be disappoint about, just do better next year.

World rank result in Japanese:
Rank 1 to 584
Rank 585 to 1170

World rank result in English:
Rank 1- 584
Rank 585-1170

From Singapore, we have 23 participants:

1. 88 Catherine Wong


2. 109 Maurice Cheong


3. 228 William Ng


4. 250 Lee Choong Hwa


5. 282 Bernard Lee


6. 420 Robert


7. 512 Steven Hii


8. 564 Wilson Lee


9. 589 Foong Siew Kuan


10. 634 Loo Fey Shien


11. 643 Vincent Toh


12. 723 Tang Chee Yong


13. 764 Jervis Mun


14. 800 Loh Koah Fong


15. 876 Richard Yap


16. 900 Tan Jian Feng


17. 910 Christophe Bibi


18. 927 Natalie Loh


19. 958 Victor Yeo Chye Kwang


20. 1000 Changlei Zhao


21. 1009 Ong Ta Wei


22. 1078 Thay Boon Cheong


23. 1133 Dio Ling

Waiting for IAPL Contest 2008 result

15 more days before 2008 IAPL Contest result. I can't wait the result, hopefully I can get better rank than last year. Total 1,170 participants from 47 Countries, 23 of them are from Singapore. Unfortunately it was less than previous year, last year we have 28 participants from Singapore.

Participants country list:

1. Argentina (1)
2. Australia (19)
3. Belarus (1)
4. Belgium (1)
5. Bolivia (1)
6. Brazil (9)
7. Bulgaria (2)
8. Canada (7)
9. Chile (1)
10. China (27)
11. Croatia (6)
12. The Czech Republic (3)
13. Denmark (1)
14. Estonia (1)
15. France (14)
16. Germany (26)
17. Greece (5)
18. Hong Kong (65)
19. India (9)
20. Indonesia (24)
21. Ireland (1)
22. Israel (1)
23. Italy (30)
24. Japan (423)
25. Kazakhstan (1)
26. Korea (18)
27. Latvia (1)
28. Lithuania (1)
29. Malaysia (120)
30. Mauritius (1)
31. Mexico (4)
32. Philippines (1)
33. Poland (63)
34. Portugal (6)
35. Romania (1)
36. Russia (18)
37. Serbia (2)
38. Singapore (23)
39. Spain (10)
40. Sweden (4)
41. Taiwan (86)
42. Thailand (28)
43. Turkey (6)
44. United Kingdom (12)
45. U.S.A. (48)
46. Ukraine (13)
47. Vietnam (25)

Beach Forest

This is my second 2ft tank. Will post photo once the ADA IAPL Contest 2008 result coming out in September. This time around, after reading various layout guide line from the web, I decided to make a scape that look like an Island. It is a lump of vegetation in the center surrounding by rock and sand. I believe It is much better than my first tank, hopefully I get better rank this time.

Also I decided to buy DSLR camera (Canon EOS 400D) for this. I saw the advantage of using external flash instead of just relay on the tank light. With the help and suggestion from fellow forumer at AQ and MAC, I manage to create those blue gradients as my background. It is probably not possible to do it with point and shoot camera though (justify my purchase).