What do you look for in a contest tank?

[gimme30]

Why reward an ugly tank?

Same reason you date the ugly chicks! They grow up to be millionaires, plus they have cute friends!

I dunno. There's a certain charm to scratched up acrylic tanks with purple gravel, resin castles and air-powered clams. Would a tank like that ever win TOTM here?
Not a chance. Nor would my relatively austere tanks. Hence the need for a new category!
It'd be worth a few laughs anyway.

 

[GaryE]

Some of the tanks I've thought were really ugly were the fishkeeper's pride and joy. I may not like ceramic decor, or resin objects, but people who are better aquarists than I may love them. There are different eyes, cultures and ideas at work in the hobby, and what's ugly in one place might be beautiful in another.

I've seen some tanks that made me say 'wow' in our contests, and those tanks didn't always win. I've seen tanks where I thought the combinations of fish were downright foul, and they won. So once we get into negative voting - there are no criteria we can be sure we share., except snottiness. We don't need that.

It's the same for beauty, but we aren't calling out tanks negatively.

I hate ceramic skulls in tanks, but I know a master aquarist who has one in every one of her tanks. She knows aquariums and has given me excellent advice over the years. Her love of fake human skull tanks has been a running joke with us. I think they're awful and she loves them and thinks they're essential.

 

[Gertrudae]

What is ugly? A tank covered in algae where young fish can hide and grow up? No plants? Full of plants, leaving almost no room to swim?

I think it's always about the fish. What do they need, what meets their requirements?

An aquarium without plants can be perfect for Malawis, but for some bettas, the green hell is, but not the other way around.

In my experience, creepy decoration is often combined with poor fish keeping - inappropriate size, fish that don't fit in and don't go together, one-sided feeding and so on. And by that I mean both sides of the spectrum - poorly maintained aquariums full of plastic stuff and aquascapes whose sole purpose is to represent a certain land(!)scape.

And what I've learned here is that it's also a cultural thing. When I see an aquarium with artificial plants in my neighbourhood in Germany, I can say with almost certainty that something else is wrong. We only know aquariums without plants for Malawis and such, and even there, people plant something because it's so unusual to have an aquarium without live plants.

It's different here. But I sense that there's a movement towards more planted aquariums, right?

 

[GaryE]

There are fashions. We move toward planted tanks, but then ideas can change. When I first joined an aquarium club, during an average auction 5% of the lots would be plants. Now, 90% of any auction is, and once common fish are uncommon offerings.

Malawi/mbuna tanks were popular 30 years ago, and now very few stores around here sell mbuna. The trend here is for Asian microfish and small planted tanks. Fishrooms, once common, are now rare. Housing in large cities has become so expensive.

An mbuna tank won't win an aquascape contest as it's fish species based. A Japanese style tableau tank can be an awful environment for the fish in it. I've drilled driftwood to make Badis habitats, and used houseplant roots to make Epiplatys spaces. What works may not be pleasing in a photo, but can make for excellent enjoyment of the fish in it.

Multicoloured gravel still outsells natural looking substrates.