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Sorry for the late reply, but better late than never.... Myself I love every style, as long as it is done well. I mean, I can love to watch at a biotope tank just as much. The Co2 distribution is mostly linked to the filter flow back into the aquarium. Filtration differs from tank to tank...

I think both works are typically Oliver; first one brillant, second one "Hallelujah i did not know a scape could look that ugly". When you look at his total "artbook" he once in a while has these weird experiments in between and most of the time I hate those. But when he is back in his...

Thanks to the offline version I could have a good time with the wonderful tanks in this competition. It was a pleasant surprise to see so much better quality overall in this competition, esspecially with more contestants. Previous years had in my opinion always 3-4 top quality scapes per...

It is a shame this great competition is always published on a website that is so slow....... I wil have to wait for a few weeks untill less visitors come to the site to be able to view it all without getting to frustrated.

Me to, and I have the pleasure to visit this tank several times a year. Ah, another thing I forgot to mention. Like everything, this developped over time. Whilst a lot of home brewing was done in the earlier days, now we see more branded products. The biggest branded fertiliser in The...

Totally agree Tom. The total level of typical Dutch Style Aquariums in the National Championship is gradually declining. With the older people been taken from the hobby, and the high adoration for Nature Style amongst the young people; the spiral is going downwards. This is also due to the fact...

And finally in this mass picture posts; last October, Raymond Duindam was granted to be crowned as the new National Champion. He even won the Grnad Champion title, meaning he received he highest score amongst all categories. As we can see, his Dutch Style has a bit of a more modern touch to it:

Like they say; like father like son....... Imagine; first drewl on Willem's tank in the living room, just te be invited upstairs to find this in his son's Fred van Wezel's room:

Now we get to the crème de la crème; Willem van Wezel. 2008 National Champion and runner up in 2005 and 2006. The first batch of pictures is how his tank looked early 2009; last on is from how it looked a few weeks ago:

Next up; John Frenken (now since a year a NBAT judge) with how he entered the contest from the Vivarium event:

Ok, first some more pics from the Bart Laurens tank (also to prove that there are actually fish in there ;-))

Thanks Tom! It was a pleasure doing so. Well, I arranged yearly aquarium trips the last few years with Christel Kasselmann and Oliver Lucanus to visit some of the best tanks in The Netherlands and Belgium in a day. It is always a pleasure doing it, and the people love to show off their...

:lol: Not quite.

SO, that was basicaly all theory for the Dutch Style. And now for the pop-quiz. Who dares to take a shot at why the above posted picture from the tank of Bart Laurens was not the best in the contest?

Details I forgot to mention First of all; using rocks and wood as decoration. The usage of these are higly restricted. The reasons for that are the same as for plants; the same thing should not appear more than once in scape. So yes, using a piece of wood or rock, covered with moss or ferns, is...

Inside the Dutch Style Now that we know what the technical requirements are, it is time to start planting. Like everybody knows, the Dutch style is also called aquatic gardening. And for a good reason. One of the aspects of the Dutch style is a high variety in plants, in particular in color...

On the mainland we use real measurements ;-) This tank is 310*65*50 in cm. Well, not for me; only in my dreams I have the time to maintain such a tank. This tank is from Bart Laurens, somebody I know very well and whos tank I have seen a few times live in action. But this man did not make it...

Before continuing on the theory, a short preview:

Well, I agree with you it is an important part of it. But it is a shared importance with the scaping. But than again, I count all plant related items as part of the scape. So the total split is 38 % relating to fishkeeping, 42% relating to scape and 20% to general topics. And in my opinion...

Well George, I do not fully agree on that the NBAT contest is more of a fishkeeping skill contest. At least, not for the planted tank category. It is a part of it, but so are plants and composition. The NBAT contest consists of 5 main categories: A1, which is planted tanks where all the...

The Hardware Whilst the typical dutch tank still has an old fashioned overall look to it, it has developped away from being heated by petroleum heaters. But than again, not far from it. I personally like to tease some of the Dutch Style die-hards that a typical tank should always contain at...

You can say that again Graeme. And because of the fact that each round takes place in a different month of the year the contestants should take care that their tanks are in optimum form throughout the whole year. In general this schedule looks as follows: Level/...

As requested by Graeme in the topic about Maurits tank, hereby a short story about Dutch style aquariums. Be warned in advance, this is my view on it; not necessarily the 100% correct story. I will start off with some theory and will continue later on with some pictures. Historic Background &...