Every year we are floored by the sheer beauty and diversity of aquascapes that are entered into the ADA international aquatic plant layout competition. This year’s entries delivered some truly inspiring layouts and we can see that some types of layouts are bifurcating along different paths. Other years it seems like everyone was emulating the works of Takashi Amano, but this year’s aquariums are going down many different paths. There are some ‘scapes that keep trying to recreate the heterogeneous layouts of the Hong Kong style, many of which were built by Cliff Hui. Several of the top contenders appear to be inspired by the mountainscapes which took top place in two categories of the AGA competition. What is most striking about this year is the large number of tanks which are using very dramatic vertical placement of wood and sticks in the layout, many of which are adorned with epiphytic mosses to make them appear as trees. How did so many competitors all get the same idea to use a ton of top to bottom wood in their layouts? Did you get the memo about vertical wood placement? cause we sure didn’t. IN any case, enjoy this video slideshow of the top 27 winnders of the 2009 ADA IAPLC and if you’re like us, you’ll likely play the clip over and over again as it is so much easier than browsing all the winner webpages.