By Craig Morfitt, BAAS

We held our 2011 Home Show on Sunday 15th May and we had a bumper entry of beautiful aquariums. In recent years, we’ve only had about four aquariums entered into the show so this year we added a class and split the show into Natural Aquariums and Designer Aquariums whilst revising the judging criteria. We had nine entries in the Natural Aquarium class and two in the Designer Aquarium class. This made for a much more interesting show but created a real challenge for the judge – me!

We created the Designer Aquarium class to allow members to participate even if they don’t have a live-planted tank. The emphasis is more on the design of the display as overall design can earn up to 60 points. Originality of design can earn 10 points, attention to detail 10 points and health & quality of fish the final 20 points. Justin Wall entered a large tank with equally large fish. His ‘monster fish’ display included an Oscar, Bifasciatus, Shovelnose, Alligator Gar and a Knifefish that all seemed to get along well together. I would have said that you couldn’t successfully keep live plants with this bunch but Justin’s display proved me wrong. A huge Amazon Sword plant has a central location in the tank and the fish don’t seem to be eating it or digging it up! Jeff Sousa’s African cichlid community edged out Justin to win first place. The display featured extensive rockwork and a constantly moving, brightly coloured assortment of cichlids. Thanks to Jeff and Justin for getting this new class off the ground. I suspect that we’ll get more entries in this class next year.

The Natural Aquarium class was very competitive. All nine displays were very well done and would be very welcome showpieces in anyone’s home. It was clear that a lot of time and effort had gone into these displays and the entrants did a wonderful job of creating live planted displays, especially when you consider the limited availability of live plants in Bermuda. It was clear very early in the show that I was going to have a difficult task picking a winner, as they were all very nicely done. The key to ranking the entries was sticking to the scoring categories and trying to find faults in each display for which points were deducted. The judging criteria for the Natural Aquarium class was Overall Design (50 points), Biotope Representation (10 points), Compatibility of Fish and Plants (10 points), Health & Quality of Plants (15 points) and Health & Quality of Fish (15 points). Several displays lost points due to equipment such as heaters and filter tubes being visible. Other causes for point deductions included having fish from different continents, fish with nipped fins, cloudy eyes, etc., plants with damage and the presence of black brush algae. Despite my trying to find faults and deduct points, six of the nine displays scored in the 80’s with only 9 points separating 1st and 6th place finishers.

When the dust settled, David Patterson emerged with first place with his South American/Amazon display that he had told everyone was ‘not ready’. It was a very nice overall design that incorporated two focal points – clumpings of plants and driftwood that worked well with a nice carpet of foreground plants. The plants really ‘popped’ against a black background. The Angelfish, Rams, Apistogrammas and Rummy Nose Tetras looked great.

Last year’s winner, Robert Wheatley, was edged into second place this year, just two points adrift of David. His display was exceptionally clean with not a spot of algae visible anywhere. His design provided lots of contrast in colour and texture and made good use of driftwood to define borders within the display.

Another two points behind was third place finisher Michelle Dunstan who now has bragging rights over husband, Scott, for a year! Michelle had the smallest aquarium and one of the most low-tech approaches in the competition but I was very impressed with the design and she earned high marks for health of both fish and plants. Michelle utilized driftwood and Anubias plants to great effect and the school of Harlequin rasboras fit the scale of the tank perfectly.

David Almeida, Scott Dunstan and Justin Wall all scored in the 80’s with some beautiful displays. If David’s tank didn’t have BB algae it would certainly have been in the top three and may have been a contender for first place. Scott had an impressive display but I deducted a couple of points for what I considered to be a distracting element. Another judge might easily have seen it differently and put this tank in the top three. Justin had obviously spent some time working with the design of his tank that represented a sunken wall with two distinct levels in the tank. Congratulations also go to Peter Marsh and Claire Wheatley for their displays. They had nice aquariums but were up against some stiff competition. I must make special mention of Jared Dunstan who is only 10 years old. He entered a 40-gallon live-planted tank that he had set up himself and was competing against the ‘big boys’ (as well as his Mom and Dad) as we don’t have a junior section. Jarad did an excellent job and, judging by what he is putting together at 10 years of age, he’s certainly one to watch when he gets a little older.

I was equally impressed by the spirit of friendly competition that clearly existed between several of the entrants. Whilst there was a lot of banter between them, it was also obvious that they help each other out throughout the year, exchanging plants and ideas. That’s what the club is all about and it was nice to see. I’m sorry that you couldn’t all win but I hope that you enjoyed visiting the various homes and seeing the different tanks. I also hope that I wasn’t too harsh in my judging and that you’ll all enter again next year.