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Finally... UK aquascaping competiion.

Mark Green said:
Cant say many peple will be sending them 10 pounds to enter. Can see this turning into a bit of a damp squid...
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I presume thats the point. Its a tiny amount (unlikely to deter anyone who actually wants to join) but it prevents people submitting phone pics of their childrens fishbowls
 
Piece-of-fish said:
Why would you need to know the company? They are one of the biggest wholesalers in the trade so we should not know them. To organise something like this takes a lot of work and lets admit the prizes are very good. First year will be trial and error but it should improve in the future. One thing for sure it will greatly improve the level of UK scaping which currently is extremey low 🙁 . There are 3-4 people in the country only! If you look at hungary history of competition the standard skyrocketed over 3-4 years.
So no mater who and how tries to do it gets big thumbs up :thumbup:
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I don't need to know the company, i was just saying that i have not heard of them before this post.

Your right that it takes time to organsie these things, however im surprised that some one like PFK did not give this a go, as their in a perfect position to do so. Good luck to them in starting this

If your going to get sponsors for an event like this, would it not be a good idea that they actually sponsor some of their products. As it looks like the money for entry is being used for the prizes.

Just my opinion.....

Anyway i hope it works out well for them, if it can improve the hobby in the UK thats a great thing..
 
10£ fee is a good idea to stop goldfish bowl entries as someone said. On the other hand number of entries could be unlimited and goldfish gang sponsoring and promoting the comp 🙂 Dont think its introduced to pay for prizes as to get 250 entries is very optimistic. Plus they have to work hard at promotion. PFK would have little interest apart from getting some content. Not worth such a hassle whereas for the wholesaler its a direct interest pushing brands they distribute.
 
Hi All, I am Emma one of the people @ J&K, working on the competition. Just thought I'd jump in and help clarify some points raised.
J&K Aquatics are one of the biggest wholesalers in the UK. You probably won't have heard of us because we deal with retail stores not the general public. We do have a facebook page if you want to know a little more about us & see a few pictures of our new warehouse.
We have been working with Alastair and all of the sponsors for over a year to organise the competition. The purpose of it is to help shine a light on aquascaping in the UK& RoI. We feel that Aquascaping needs a real boost in UK & RoI and are hoping that this competition will give retailers and hobbyists alike something to help further promote the hobby and show off the skills we have here.
Piece-of-fish is right in what he is saying. The £10 limit is to ensure that those entering are aquascaping hobbyists, we have to be realistic about how we start this competition and we don’t have the capacity to monitor hundreds of entries. Therefore the cap on numbers and small entry fee is to ensure we only get legitimate entries from real hobbyists.
Again, Piece-of-fish is correct in what he is saying there will be hiccups in the first year and we are trying to take on board the suggestions that have been raised. The UK theme is optional and we would never dream to specify use UK only plants. You could be as loose in interpreting it as a colour scheme. We have also have decided to allow entries from 0 up to 300L.
Regarding the comments about the sponsors. If you head over to the UKASC website at www.ukasc.co.uk you can see that the prizes consist not only of cash but a range of equipment from the sponsors. All of the materials for the live “scape off” at Aqua 2015 will be provided by our sponsors and entrants hotels will also be paid for. Please note Aqua Telford is a trade only event, so we are only to able to invite the chosen scapers to attend, with us.
We hope that you all can get behind this and help us to develop the competition into something that really puts UK aquascaping on the map in years to come. We are always open to discussion and really look forward to the competition.
 
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If you let me comment about the limit on both tank size and limit on entries. The limit on top size in not quite necessary as it is very unlikely that you would get flooded with such size entries and on the other side if you ge any it is deserved to be seen. Planted aquariums of this size are very rare.
The number of entries limit is shooting yourself in the foot a bit as competition has been announced only 4 months to the deadline and it takes min 3-4 months to do an aquascape from scratch. Again its unlikely that the limit would be achieved but it could scare few people of. The ones who want to start an aquascape for this competition now and worry about not getting a chance to submit it later.
Perhaps you can make your life easier by not limiting the entries but reducing the ammount of aquariums which get rated from 1-50 or 1-100 for example.
Just a few ideas 😉
 
Thanks piece-of-fish, we are taking on board all comments - this year will very much be a learning curve!
The limit on size was deemed necessary, to simplify judging criteria. How can you compare a nano and a 300L + aquarium? However upto 300l is still quite a range, I don't envy our judges!!
The limit on entrants again came about as should scape need to be viewed - it was what we could realistically cover in the timescale. Like you said, highly unlikely we will have that many entrants in our 1st year but hopefully not scaring off too many.
We are a bit behind schedule launching the event officially this year...the scape doesn't have to be new, just in existence now, and be able to be viewed, if necessary.
As for all those who are unable to enter this year due to our restrictions - please feel free to share your photos on the event's Facebook page (UK aquatic scaping competition). We'd love to see & hear what we've missed out on.
 
ill be entering the other halves 60 George, to show support as much as anything, i think its long over due and no small task to organize no doubt.
Had i known a bit earlier the 120 might have got a rescape but guess that can wait for next year.
 
I would consider entering if my UK native tank turns out well (big if!). However, I don't agree with the whole policy of banning any publication of pictures of the tank before entering. I am not sure what the purpose is, and I think it discourages experienced aquarists from sharing their techniques and ways of working - which is one of the things I like about this site.

I think it is great that you're doing a UK competition though.
 
Hi luckyjim, while I and others involved totally understand your view on the prior publication of pics / techniques that it does kind of go against the principles of all the hobby's sites, we are just trying to make the competition as simple and fair as possible. If one of our judges had previously seen other info and images published or online, we could not guarantee their opinion would not have been influenced. They could abstain from voting on a particular entry I guess, but then we would have to average out points awarded, not have the same full panel judge each entry individually.
Hope you do get to enter your tank.....
 
Emma-jnk said:
Hi luckyjim, while I and others involved totally understand your view on the prior publication of pics / techniques that it does kind of go against the principles of all the hobby's sites, we are just trying to make the competition as simple and fair as possible. If one of our judges had previously seen other info and images published or online, we could not guarantee their opinion would not have been influenced. They could abstain from voting on a particular entry I guess, but then we would have to average out points awarded, not have the same full panel judge each entry individually.
Hope you do get to enter your tank.....
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Great that there's a UK comp but I wont be entering due to this. Keeping a new scape under wraps for several months just stifles the hobby in my opinion. Fair enough to not show the final image of the tank so it can be used for J&K's promotion but to not show any setup and progress with others is unecessary. With your example above about the judges maybe seeing the tank before allocating points what happens at the live scape in Aqua Telford? Will the judges there be put in an isolation room for the whole show so they cant see who scaped the tanks?

It just doesnt make sense to me and thats why you have several judges you can trust who will be impartial and just look at the quality of the final scape, independant of whose built it.
 
Telford is a ballot - of the shows visitors, not judged by panel. I will seek clarification with judges about prior publications...
 
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