Add in some drops of dish soap, it breaks the surface tension of the water and makes it look well.

a tip: mix the water with a bit of soap gently. gets rid of surface tension so you dont get an odd barrier around the edge. dont mix it roughly or it might get bubbly!

Little bit of dawn and some blue food coloring and it will look great

The addition of glycerin to the water will break the natural surface tension of the water for a more realistic look.

Wow! Fantastic job! Whenever I make my model layout, I'm definitely going to make a waterfall feature

Well done indeed! As a Koi/N-scale Train fancier, this video really caught my attention! I can't really drill a hole in the dining room table, but when I shift my layout elsewhere, I shall certainly borrow your idea -- minus the miniscus!

This is very clever, some colour and dish soap and it’s perfect

I have played with this idea before, as have a few others over the years, so here is what I learned from the experience of 4 different set ups. Firstly, water is heavy, never forget that, make sure where ever it runs, there is enough physical structure to hold it in place. Even the tiniest pin prick will leak and do its best to follow gravity down. Paint the river, ponds, shoreline, etc as you would model water, lighter at the banks, muddy colour in the shallows, dark colours in the depths. Use a medium modeler's use to replicate water, when done right both water and fake water will present a good visual effect. As mentioned below, a drop of dish washing li

It was a bold move, but it seems to have paid off.. I am planning a dock with HO scale ships.

Great idea but slightly anti climatic due to the shallow parts of the areas you want to fill up and get better flow and build up. I realize that this is your "maiden" attempt and may want to make adjustments. When you make some subtle changes to the flow and let some of the sections fill up a bit more, I think this will be FANTASTIC. Good luck and good job.

This comment is kind of late so I hope you will still read it.. qu This comment is pretty late, but I hope that you will still read it. My tablet is acting up and not letting me read along as write so please excuse typos, etc. I have been a MRer for 79 of my 82 years. There was a discussion of this in Model Railroader magazine way back in the early 1950s. The conclusion back then was that real water on a layout wasn't a good idea. I only remember seeing 2 layouts with real water.If I remember correctly, these were at the Metropolitan Society of Model Engineers, in Washington Dc on a large mostly 1/4" scale layout.and a very large commercial Lionel (tinplate). layout càled something like "Roadside America." I remember being unimpressed with the realism of their water (possibility because of the physics of the matter - the trains moved in 1:48 scale while the water moved in 1:1 scale. The smallest pinhole in the river bed will result in an eventual flood under the layout. And there were separate reports of trouble with mold and mildew. If my memory is correct, the solution offered was to add copper sulfate to the water (not sure that would be legal here these days). Did you do a follow-up post? I would be interested any problems you experienced and your solutions. Nice job thinking outside the box!

I luv it! Bet you have it dialed in today 👌🏼 Thx 🙏🏻

That’s awesome man!

Look up micro usb water pumps..

Great job loved it. Once you do it you will be asking why others dont use it.

Much better than fake river

Before you turn it on, honestly this sounds risky 🤞

I think it’s brilliant that you had a crack at it, and I hope it’s still going strong! There’s a lot of people worrying about mildew and such but you could put something in it to prevent all that, surely? Google being your friend in this instance. Don’t listen to the nay-sayers anyway, it adds a dimension that not many layouts have. Though I would versing taken the advice of a surface tension destroyer and she’ll flow much better. Oh listen at me, I’m writing this like you uploaded the video yesterday :) :) I’m gonna have to have a look at the follow-up videos now. I just hope you added a mill at some point! :)

Would it also be possible to make a Model Railway with real water and actual model boats (depending on the scale)?

Need slightly bigger pump

good idea intil a train crashes into it