DIY desktop waterfall

I've been wanting to make a waterfall inside of a container for a while now, and today I was able to do just that. I'll use a variety of different techniques, including making a custom background, to make it work. To start off, I have this tall glass container that I found off Amazon. The first thing I'll do is make a background. I'll use some aqua soil, and pour it into a container. Then I'll add some water to it, and start mixing it up. This will turn it into a sort of clay, and when dry, should hopefully hold everything together. This is a pretty long and messy process, but it's worked for me in the past, so I figured why not try it again. The last time I used this was on my lamp terrarium. That was a very different project from this one, so we'll see if it holds up. Anyway, now you can see it's all mixed up. The next thing I need to address is the pump. I'm going to be using sand as a substrate, so I need to create a barrier between the pump and the sand. To do that, I'll use some thin plastic that I had lying around. I started by measuring each side of the pump, and then cutting the pieces to size. The pump was nearly the same on each side, so I was able to cut three identical pieces. I'll be using super glue to hold them together, but in the meantime, I'll use some painting tape so it keeps its shape. I used a few pieces of tape on all three pieces, then folded it into a box. I'll then use some super glue to permanently hold it together. I applied it to both corners. Hot glue would work just as fine for this, but unfortunately I didn't have any at the time. Now that everything's assembled and it's glued, I'll add some super glue to the bottom of it, then stick it into the container. This will be a barrier between the sand and the pump, and make sure nothing gets clogged. I'll also add some aqua soil near the bottom to strengthen it a bit. It's a little bit messy, but it should do the trick. The next thing I need to do is add the airline tubing. For the background, I'll be using Oco Dragonstone. I've been wanting to use this stone for quite a while now, and I figured this would be the perfect project. I've been using serioustone for a lot of my projects, and I wanted to try something new. My idea here is to create a rock wall covered in moss, with the tube running up the back and out the front creating a waterfall. One of the things that I noticed and I liked about this dragonstone versus the serioustone is it's a lot lighter. This makes it much easier to create backgrounds, as they won't need as much support. I'm also not going to be adding any driftwood to this. I could have added a few small branches of spiderwood, but I felt like it just didn't need it. The color is very similar to the dragonstone, and I don't think it would have done anything at this small a scale. Anyway, after getting everything scaped, I started adding the aquasoil. Like I said, I've used this technique before, but it was on a very different project, so I'm curious to see how this will work. Now that everything's held in with aquasoil, I need to start adding rocks to the front. The layer of sand I'm using won't be thick enough to cover this base, so I'll cover it with more dragonstone. I was only able to get a few small pieces of stone, so I was glad to have enough to finish this. I'll also be adding moss in between the stones, so I need to leave small gaps for that. I also used some aquasoil to hold this in place. Once it was done, I cut the tube in the top. I think I did this a bit too early, as the aquasoil wasn't fully dry, and everything moved. Anyways, I started to add some sand to the bottom of the container. I always have difficulty choosing substrates, as there's so many of them, but I think I did a good job with this one. Now that the background's done and the sand is added, it's time to add the moss. I should mention that in addition to the aquasoil holding everything in the background together, I also had to add some superglue. As I said when I cut the tube in the background, everything moved a bit. The aquasoil didn't stick to the glass as well as I had hoped it would, so I added some superglue. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough, and when I was testing everything, the whole background collapsed. So I reassembled the background, and started to secure it with a lot more superglue. I didn't end up using any aquasoil. I also decided that the pump box was a bit too much, and I added this straight barrier. This will allow me to adjust the flow if and when I want to. Like I said, there is going to be moss in between the dragonstone, but a lot of it won't be covered. The superglue looks obnoxious when it's dried, so to address that, I'll start adding some superglue over the parts that I glued, then using some crushed up stones, I'll sprinkle it over it, and blend everything together. In hindsight, I should have just added the dust when I was gluing everything together. However, I think it still turned out amazing, and it was really easy to do. I didn't do it to a lot of the ones on the side, as I'll cover them with moss. Speaking of moss, it's time to add it. Again. You can also see here that instead of the tube going straight out the top, I angled it towards the middle a bit, and out. Like I said, I can adjust the flow with the pump, but I'll also use some moss to direct it. You can use moss and other materials to direct where you want the water to go. I love the way moss looks with grey seria stone, but I think I love this combination even more. Like I said earlier, I didn't add any spiderwood. I had a bunch of pieces laying around that I could have used, but I just feel it didn't need anything. Sometimes with these smaller projects, simpler is always better. I want to take a minute to talk about my break from YouTube. I usually don't like taking weeks off unless I'm sick, or on vacation, or something like that. However, I just felt like I needed a break. A lot of my projects weren't going well at all, and I felt like my videos just weren't what I wanted them to be. For the past few months, I've had the mindset of, I have to get a video out no matter what it is. Even if I'm not happy with it, I have to get one out. I realize now that that's a really bad mindset to have, and that's why I didn't post anything last week. I could have easily filmed and posted something, but I wasn't going to be happy with it, and I figured I might as well just wait and make something better. I've been really slow on YouTube in terms of subscribers and views, and I feel like that's the reason why. So from now on, I'm only going to post videos that I'm happy with, even if I have to take the week off. I'm still going to get videos out once a week, however, they're just going to be much better. Anyway, now that the moss is added, I need to address lighting. I have this base with a light above it that I got off Amazon. This should work perfectly. A DIY desktop waterfall. Although I had a few issues making this one, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Let me know what you think down in the comments. Although I enjoy working on animal enclosures and bigger projects more, sometimes it's nice to just step back and do one of these smaller ones. I'm always looking for cool and unique ideas for stuff like this, so if you have any, please let me know. One of the things I think I should have put a little more time into in this is the actual waterfall. I know it's kind of the main part of the build, but it doesn't work the way I wish it would. I like the way it looks, it's just sometimes it can tend to go one way or the other, and it's not very consistent. By one way or the other, I mean it drifts left and right. Sometimes the waterfall catches a little piece of moss or a rock, and it decides to go that way. This is mostly annoying because sometimes it'll go straight forward a bit, and it'll end up splashing the glass. Whenever I get the waterfall adjusted though, I think it looks amazing. It's very peaceful to listen to, and will make a great display piece for any table or desk. Anyway, that's all I got for today. Let me know down in the comments if you like this build, and if I should do more like it. Thank you for watching, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. See ya.