all right guys welcome to tom reefer studio here's the 20 gallon mixed reef for you new
viewers who haven't seen the studio yet here's the 3.5 gallon pico reef
and here's the 5 gallon tall closer to 6 as i always say custom made and up here is the
latest edition the 10 gallon peninsula reef and today this is the project we're gonna do today
see if you can guess what i'm gonna make out of that
observation is key just remember that this studio it's only been up a year i had the
20 gallon was the first tank then i went to the 5 gallon 5 gallon tall
then i went with the pico reef and my last one is this peninsula reef so it's been one year
in evolution overflow box what i wanted to do is put this external overflow box on so i could put
my skimmer down inside it my heater as well as remove the skim 350 because this becomes
the surface skimmer so that's what we're going to do today that's good all right we're back
all right today what i wanted to show you guys i know i'm a little obsessive with it but there
is some reason to my madness an internal or an external overflow box and a nano reef really
helps a lot and i've talked about this before so i'll say it again because i'm building one
it's great for oxygen exchange when i look at the tanks that i have those in for example your
all-in-one tank is an overflow box it's just large in the back so you can put other things
in it when i built these tanks the five gallon and the pico reef they didn't come with any kind
of internal overflow or an external overflow i keep saying to myself i wish the skimmer
and the skin 350 could just go away and finally i said i'm going to do it
and here of course you got to take a measurement i wanted it long enough to be able to completely
conceal the skimmer down inside it'll stick up the way it is now on the top
but it won't be in the tank it'll be in the overflow box and i also wanted to put the heater
in it and it's going to have a small i'm going to use the c-cha nano pump so here i'm getting a
close as i can measurement for the width of the box so both the skimmer and a small pump the c
chay will fit inside and the heater but that's so thin that i won't really need much on that i get
so hot doing these things it's because i'm on a mission guys you know a mission to teach you guys
so what i did here this is eight inch acrylic plastic and i just score it and cut it to size
what i'm using here is that black aquarium sealant it's asi i think and it's really good stuff
it works well
all right this is called mr stickies all right so this is the overflow box i'm going to use the glue
i'm going to use the glue and i did some research on it it's underwater epoxy glue i got some really
good reviews so you can use it under water now i'm not going to be in the water but i'm going to be
around it so i've never used this but there's a cool video on it where the guy glues two things
under water and then he hits it with a hammer and bangs it off the ground so it should work
and when i build the top of the tank up higher my idea is to use black acrylic to kind of frame
it this is kind of the artistic part of me guys i had to figure out how i could put the overflow box
on the outside and in doing that i have to build the height of the tank up a little so it creates
an overflow section so this is how i did it so this will give you a little idea
guys of what i'm talking about here what i have on order is another piece of this
and my idea is to put this right like this see that and what's cool about it
is it'll cover up a little this stuff i mean i could even go higher with it
i haven't decided but here's a better angle for you so i'm going to do this kind of thing
so it's going to hide it and that way the height i'll probably put this right about to there the
height will allow the water to go down below saying this is going to go back in here like this
and all this stuff comes out then skim 350 which i'm not that happy about and
the skimmer can go down inside this let's give it one more shot like that
like that see what i'm talking about guys
that's gonna clean it up so nice it's gonna really look good
like that like that like that like that
see how it frames it out guys i've had a couple viewers ask me about why i use
canopies on my lights and this is the perfect reason they frame it they frame your tank so all
this stuff in here is not a distraction your eye goes right down into the tank all right all right
all right guys so right now it looks a little like a cluster you know what
but if you've tiled before or you're a tileist you'll know that tape
is a tileless best friend it's holding everything in place and then when it sets and hardens i'll
peel the tape off so all right there it is guys i'm a little concerned about the white glue on
the back but i'll let that grow in and that'll disappear in time but this part here looks nice
i can't start it today because i did some siliconing this morning in spots that
i was a little concerned about water getting through so on water change wednesday i'll show
you
that should do it for this one right
i agree i have to keep doing that over and over again guys i'm getting more new viewers so the i
agree thing they may have no clue that i've been doing that for probably six months to a year now
so anyway new viewers my thing is i agree when i say there's enough who wants more a tom reefer
anyway