RyanRick's 65g DI(mostly)Y Build

ryanrick · Jan 17, 2025

Lots of updates to catch people up on. I' ill try to go chronologically. I purchased a 270 gallon aquarium (6x3x2') that I am moving on to, so I am going to try to update everyone on the last couple years. Really struggled to keep SPS until I started the reef-moonshiners method. Water changes are such a pain because I don't have a water change station. Moonshiners has really helped! Still nutrients have bottomed out twice in the last year which led to poro dinoflagelates. Oh, btw I hate dinos!

Oct 2023

Dec 2023 - Nutrients bottomed out. Found Dino support group on FB. Started moonshines.

Feb 2024 - Dosing silicates helped boost competitive diatoms which cleaned up dinos.

Feb 2024 - Had some really nice jawbreakers at this point.

March 2024 - really giving SPS a shot here!

March 2024 - Dodged a bullet on AEFW from an online vendor! Glad I kept a QT tank.

July 2024 - Really picking up steam here!

Nov 2024 - Couldn't keep the sandbed clean so I sucked it out. Not sure I like the look or not. Corals growing fastttt!

Visited Hawaii and was thinking about kidnapping some yellow tangs ;)

Dec 2024 - Sunlight coming through windows

Jan 2025 - Top down pics looking great!

ryanrick · Jan 17, 2025

Funny story on that mint colored monti cap - it started as a red cap! I basically had killed it while trying sps, but ~2-3 polyps survived and took on a mint/blue color. Pretty fun for one of the more boring corals I have :)

ryanrick · Mar 12, 2025

Lovely layers!

mattgsa · Apr 7, 2025

Wow, you are doing much better than I am. I can't keep corals alive for more than a couple of weeks. I may need to try moonshiners. I can't believe how much growth you have. Also, what CNC did you use to make the lid?

ryanrick · Apr 7, 2025

mattgsa said:
Wow, you are doing much better than I am. I can't keep corals alive for more than a couple of weeks. I may need to try moonshiners. I can't believe how much growth you have. Also, what CNC did you use to make the lid?

I made my own CNC a few years back because I needed one with more vertical travel than a normal router has! I also didn't want to spend $2k on one :)

I really like moonshiners! I couldn't keep SPS alive either - I was very low on several key elements like potassium which is really a major element (similar levels as calcium around ~425ppm). I am not sure if there are any major benefits over some of the other trace element dosing methods are much different though?

mattgsa · Apr 8, 2025

ryanrick said:
I made my own CNC a few years back because I needed one with more vertical travel than a normal router has! I also didn't want to spend $2k on one :)

I really like moonshiners! I couldn't keep SPS alive either - I was very low on several key elements like potassium which is really a major element (similar levels as calcium around ~425ppm). I am not sure if there are any major benefits over some of the other trace element dosing methods are much different though?

I'm not smart enough to make a CNC, I wish I could pay you for some lids.