DIY corner overflow covers

[thompson2224]

What have you done to make your corner overflow or overflow look nicer than just the black that is standard? Im thinking of putting a cement cover on it to blend in with the live rock and give me some shelves for corals.

 

[ca1ore]

I just cut a pie-shaped piece of black acrylic to go on top.

 

[thompson2224]

Yeah for that I am thinking of doing a piece of screen or acrylic as well but I'm talking more along of the lines of this

 

[SGT_York]

That is nice, certainly for a FOWLR tank.

The concrete shelf or LR inserted into foam liner is a great option for reef tanks.

 

[ca1ore]

Yeah for that I am thinking of doing a piece of screen or acrylic as well but I'm talking more along of the lines of this

Ha ha, sorry, misunderstood your question ..... This is what I did .....



Found some thin, curved live rock and zip tied it to the removable part of the overflow.

 

[thompson2224]

That looks nice, was it hard to do?

 

[ca1ore]

That looks nice, was it hard to do?

Not really, though I was lucky because one of my LFS got in a whole bunch of flat and thin live rock so I was able to pick out some pieces that had a slight curve to them. The Marineland overflows have a removable piece on the inside tank side of the overflow that I drilled a bunch of holes in so I could run zipties to secure the rock to the face of the overflow. Obviously you don't want to be drilling holes completely through the overflow wall :lol: Then I used a bit of epoxy putty on a few smaller pieces to fill any remaining gaps. After about three months the zipties get covered in coralline algae (which seems to grow better on plastic than anything else) and you don't really notice them. Here is a FTS where you can see I did it to one end but not the other as I didn't want a symmetrical look.

 

[thompson2224]

I like that idea. I only have one on a 72 gallon tank. Do you think using cement would work? Do you know if the type of cement matters. I was just going to use quick drying cement from a Home Depot

 

[ca1ore]

In my case the tank was up and running so I couldn't use cement because it needs to be cured for quite a while before it is safe for use, plus not sure whether it would adhere properly to plastic.