The winner of the first sera Aquascaping Challenge has been determined

About ten months have passed since the sera Aquascaping Challenge started in December 2019. In three rounds, twelve aquascapers and influencers competed for the title that was awarded by sera for the first time. After a slight delay, the final was upcoming. The live event, which was originally planned for Interzoo 2020, had to be postponed and rescheduled due to the corona pandemic.
Eva Maria Koller from Austria, Gianluca Onida from Germany and Mark-Jan Fioole from the Netherlands came face to face on two days at the sera headquarters and competed against each other in a live contest. Already on the day of arrival, there was lots to see for the three influencers. A guided tour through the sera plant was followed by the presentation of new products from the development department. Afterwards, the participants had the opportunity to get to know their workplace and the provided material from the sera product range before the evening ended with a dinner.
On the second day the time had finally come. The aquascapers had seven hours to set up one sera AquaTank each. Eva Maria showed how it is done and her minimalistic hardscape in Iwagumi style was ready after only two hours. Mark-Jan and Gianluca finished their work an hour later. The participants regarded the time as the greatest challenge: "At first I thought we would have more than enough time. We had the whole day. When I realised in the afternoon that I still had to plant everything, I had to hurry a little," said the Dutchman. In addition, the aquariums had to be presented shortly after the final. There was no time to let the plants grow: "The biggest challenge was to cover the whole ground with plants during this time," reports the Austrian.
It was a premiere for all three. So there was a lot of excitement. But it quickly died down: "There has been support from all sides. There was no competition and it was really very pleasant," says Eva Maria. Gianluca agrees: "We had a lot of fun and the final was definitely worth competing for so long".
The participants had already chosen one of the three sera AquaTanks in advance. They also determined their hardscape in advance. The complete sera range was available to them. Just like in the first two rounds with the sera Scaper Cubes, the participants showed how the sera design aquariums can be set up in a versatile and individual way.
Three weeks after the event, it was time to vote on sera's Instagram channel. Until then, the followers could get interesting impressions on photos and videos and get to know the finalists better. For a weekend, the influencers had time to diligently promote their Aquascape on their channels. Because the number of Likes determines the placement.

After a really exciting weekend it was clear: With 993 votes Gianluca Onida from Germany is the first winner of the sera Aquascaping Challenge. It was a very exciting competition until the end. Gianluca and Mark-Jan took the lead and fought a close neck-and-neck race until the end. With only twelve votes less, the Dutchman took the second place. Eva Maria Koller takes the third place. In addition to much fame and honour, all three finalists are also happy to receive a cash prize of € 1,000, € 500 and € 250.
The further development of the aquariums, e.g. the introduction of fish, shrimps and snails into the sera AquaTanks, will be shown in the future and regularly on Instagram and Facebook. There you can also view all contributions to the sera Aquascaping Challenge again.
We would like to thank all twelve participants for their work. The results are really impressive, as well as being great suggestions on what you can do with the sera Scaper Cubes and also the new sera AquaTanks!