This isn't a real coral reef! It's a fun coral reef project that you make in a box. And we have a clever and unusual way of looking at it.

I love this project! It is what I would call a classic "inside a box" project.

There is a beautiful coral reef inside this box. And we do the outside of it in a clever way. It is as if we are a scuba diver checking out a coral reef. You look into the scuba mask. And you shine a "glow in the dark" flashlight into the little portal on the bottom left.

If you are not familiar with what a UV light is just think of a black light and black light posters. So, you use a UV light and some glow in the dark paints and your coral reef will really pop.

Lots of UV flashlights are available on Amazon.

And for the paints I purchased these exact ones from Amazon

And you only need one box for this project. You can use the four smaller flaps from the box for the scuba gear and the coral reef. Remove those four flaps, cutting on the white dotted lines. And you can still close the box to keep it dark inside.

Paint the inside of the box an ocean blue. You can make it a uniform blue or you can use some white and some different shades of blue to make it more interesting.

Those flaps become a coral reef.

For fish and other floating objects you can add a little cardboard standoff to the back and then adhere it to the back wall of the box.

From the perspective of looking through the scuba mask these it will appear to be floating in water.

Install those painted parts into the box.

Cut a hole for your scuba mask and porthole. And add those parts along with a snorkel.

And you are ready to shine your UV flashlight into the portal and look through the scuba mask.