This is the Great Candy Barrier Reef and it was so exciting to make. I'm not really a candy person but this definitely made me want to eat some. Hope you have as much fun making it as I did!

Supplies

For This Great Barrier Reef Ecosystem you will need:

-Assorted Colourful Candies--I used Maynards Swedish Fish, Maynards Swedish Berries, Trolli Sour Brite Octopus, Grape and Strawberry Nerds, Gummy Peach Rings and Tid Bitz. Other candies of your choice can be used as well.

-Foam Balls

-Foam Stars

-Foam Assorted Shapes

-A Foam Cone

-Blue Rocks

-Red Rocks

-Orange Chenille Stems

-Popsicle Sticks

-Assorted Paint Brush Set

-Neon Paint

-Sea Shells

-Blue Tissue Paper

-Glue Gun

-12 x 9 x 4 Box

-Tape

-Scissors

-Wood Tooth Pics

Step 1: The Box

First, you want to take the long flap on top of the box and cut it off.

Then attach that flap to the long bottom flap with tape.

After that, cut one of the short, wide flaps off and keep the other one.

Connect the remaining side flap until it is touching the bottom long flap and tape that together.

Step 2: Creating the Sea

After you've cut the top flap, taped it to the bottom, cut the left side flap off, take 2 sheets of the tissue paper and fill the interior of the box with it. Use the tape and the glue gun to secure the tissue all around the box.

Step 3: Creating the Coral

After you have created the sea, you want to be very creative with making the different types of coral.

Use the orange stems, the Trolli octopus gummies and licorice to make the different types. I used them because of the range in colour they had. Coral reefs are filled with many beautiful colours, so it would be best to layer your candy and supplies.

Then connect your finished coral shapes together with the toothpicks. Connecting the shapes with the toothpicks was a little tricky to make them stand exactly where you want them. One thing to make sure of though, is to leave enough room to lay the red rocks in front of the foam shapes as well as the blue rocks.

Step 4: The Animals

After the coral has been made, it’s time to create the animals! I wanted their to be many different types of prey and predators for this ecosystem. For the foam stars, you can choose any type of paint because starfish range in colour.

Next, cut one of the foam circles in half and make that into a turtle shell to paint it green.

Then take a Swedish fish and put it under the shell to form the head. Now you have a turtle.

After that, use a smaller foam ball to create a puffer fish. Use a brown marker to make the head of the puffer fish and then use toothpicks snapped in half to stick in the foam. Make 2 circles for the eyes and a oval for its mouth.

Then draw out other animals of your choice from your ecosystem. I chose a water snake, a seahorse, krill and a shark. You can also create phytoplankton using torn up green Swedish fish.

Step 5: The Great Candy Barrier Reef

After you finish drawing and making the animals along with the reefs, it's time to assemble your REEF!

The first thing you need to do is to place all of your coral reef in the right side corner.

Then, hot glue your school of Swedish fish to the back left wall and the right side wall.

Next, lay your red and blue rocks down in front of the coral reef. Remember to leave space for the nerd sand floor.

Then you can put painted starfish on the red or blue rocks facing up or where the colour can really pop.

After that, hot glue the pufferfish in the left corner of the wall as you can see in the picture above. Also, lay the krill on top of the blue and red rocks along with the Phytoplankton to make it seem as though the krill was eating it.

Then start to add your finishing touches by placing one of the seashells in the front and one of them in the back for more objects to be seen at once. Hot glue the seahorse and attach that to one of the walls. Also hot glue the sharks fin to the top of the box to make it look like it's floating as seen above.

After that, put the snake in between the seashell in the back and the turtle shell so that it can stand up and out.

Lastly, I spread out the nerds using the rest of the space on the floor of the box.

Extra step: Put pieces of licorice on the rocks as worms. You can also use Maynards Swedish berries as rocks for an extra pop of colour or any other candy of your choice.