You wont have to have a 10K t5ho to keep a clam....Hell aquablue's are like 3-4 points lower on PAR than the 10K's...

fraggle rockette - if you want to keep a crocea or maxima you should make sure your params are spot on and stable....Just cause you buy a high PAR light doesnt mean it will survive....especially if your calcium is at 100PPM in the tank...

Agreed 100% Make sure your calcium and Alk are at the proper levels and stable before getting a clam.

phix- you dont have mh yet? i wouldve thought for sure for some reason...

how do i test calcium/alk? i dont have those in my water test kit- is there a separate one i should get? reccomendations/favorited?

i definately am not planning on stocking my tank further with fish/clams until all the aquascaping is exact and water prefect

(p.s. nanoty, how's that for replies? haha... i'm just teasing... but really... i told u it was the tape)

salifert calcium test
tetra alk test
salifert magnesium test

read the links in my signature below for a better understanding of their relationships

wow... you are the scnr chemist... i have so much to learn!!!

Whoa, why not Salifert alk? That's what I use, and then Read Sea and API Ca tests.

Anywho, nope no MH yet Veronica. I just have the stock 4x24w T5HO lighting my Finnex tank came with. I put individual reflectors on the daylights and recently added a pair of R2 moonlights to the fixture as well. Provides enough light for my croecea clam though which I actually got from EZ. It's like the LA community clam and about 3-4 years old, lol!

cuz the salifert alk tests are expensive !

Pfff, no way. The Salifert CA test is expensive!! I bought the Salifert Alk test because I thought the less than $20 price was reasonable, lol! Oh, I think I got mine for about $13 from some hobby shop online someone linked to many months ago on here.

Anyone try 70W of halides with 1" crocea or maxima in an ultra small tank?

I've kept 4 species of Crocoea clams before (crocea, derasa, maxima, squamosa, and even a Hippopus sp.), but never in such a small tank as I'm currently working with.

Clams can be kept under PC lighting as well. I used to keep the five above under PC lighting (4x96W over a 40 gallon tank).

i'm not going to get into the whole PC lighting argument, but i would recommend you NOT get clams under 2.5 inches as they have a very high mortality rate.

by changing your salt, and adding 2 part solution to your tank. look up Randy's 2 part solution.

What salt are you using?

tropic marin regular with a touch of calcium (homemade)

So you're using both a 2 part solution, plus TM regular salt with a touch of calcium?

Which 2 part solution are you using? (Have you tried others?)

What are you adding for the 'touch of calicium'?

What calcium level are you maintaining? (in your 24g aquapod with all the sps)

My main interest is because I'll be setting up a JBJ 28g HQI and want to focus on mostly sps for the final stages.

I'm using my own homemade 2-part solution using Randy's formula.
For the touch of calcium i'm using the calcium part of the 2-part.
calcium levels are 400-420.

Qwank, i make sure my clams get at least 9-10 hours of metal halide lighting.

now what if the clams you are referring to aren't the clams that i happen to have?

i believe since the rock is floridain that the clam is likewise, and it seems fine under PC but feedin if anyone knows may be different...

any suggestions?

the clams i'm talking about are tridacnid clams, or the giant clam family and they are not found in the Atlantic.

Not to be stupid or repetitive, but I have a 24g NC with a light upgrade to 108 watts PC. I just got a crocea clam yesterday. I was really apprehensive but the guy at the LFS talked me into it and gave it to me at cost. Do you think my clam will be ok with 108 watts to PC if i put it almost 3/4 of the way to the top of my tank. The guy at the LFS told me to put it in the substrate, but I can only guess thats way to low.

it will probably die slowly, you can tell by the coloration fading away in the mantle area generally. it may also be reaching for more light with hyperextension of the mantle. who knows, you may get lucky, but stop visiting that LFS.

I saw a post a ways back in this thread asking if the BC29 stock lighting was adequate for a clam (maxima?).

The BC29 stock lighting is:
36 watt True Actinic 03 blue straight pin
36 watt 10,000 K daylight straight pin
3 .75 watt lunar blue moon glow LED

I also have a BC29 and was wondering the same. I've been doing a lot of reading on this subject and it seems most everyone recommends MH. I've seen 150 watts MH 10K recommended a few times. How much would this cost and is anyone experienced with modifying their BC29 with this type of setup?

BTW, I dont quite understand what the 10,000 K actually means...

Also as a sidenote/question - someone at my LFS (who I've actually come to trust and have talked to many times on various subjects) advised me that if a clam is tank raised under average PC wattage or has "grown up" in that environment, that it will survive and can thrive in a tank with only PC lights, such as what the BC29 has... opinions?

damn..just bought a one inch maxima at the lfs for 40bucks and now i read this

that dude in the LFS doesn't know the natural habitat of giant clams in the wild. maximas and croceas are found in less than 15 feet of water in very clear and clean conditions.

10,000k is the color temperature of the bulb. the higher the kelvin, the bluer and less intensity. the lower, the whiter and more intense (par/lumen). 10ks are closer to natural sunlight and is white, but will give much more par than 14 or 20ks. you also have to compare bulbs, as quality 14k bulbs give off more par than some bad 10k bulbs. PAR = photosyntethic active radiation

Cool, thx for the explanation

I can add my experience – although I am still learning like the rest of us.

I have kept a tear drop gold maxima clam in a 20H under PC lights for over a year now. The lighting fixture is a 2x65W PC mounted a couple of inches over the surface of the water. There is one 10K bulb and one Actinic bulb. The clam is in the sand directly under the 10K bulb. I maintain high CA (above 400) and alk and feed DTs Reef Phtyo blend daily. There are a few other soft and LPS corals in the tank along with one or two RBTA depending on when the RBTA split last. There are also two Ocelaris clowns. The color of the clam is a little browner than when I got it but still pretty good. The clam also has a nice white new growth edge on its shell and has always appeared healthy. It was about 2.5 to 3 inches long when I got it. I put it in the tank as an experiment expecting to need to move it to a MH tank if it did not do well but it has been fine. Nitrates are detectable in that tank but are only about 1~5. I do 5 gallon water changes on the tank each week since I feed the RBTAs heavily.

I just got a PAR meter so I will see what the reading is at the clam’s level. I suspect it is below 100 based on measurements that I have taken at other locations in the tank thus far.

In a 110G tank with 2x250W 20K MH and 4x55W of PC, I also have 3 clams. A deresa on the bottom which does well, a blue maxima about half way up that appears healthy but whose color has faded, and a blue crocea on the bottom that is doing well. I know the PAR reading near the blue clam is over 200 (Apogee Quantum meter on electric light source setting) but it still has faded a bit over its colors from when I purchased it. Perhaps it needs more light to brighten up? I feed that tank Phyto as well. It has a growth edge so it is growing, but I would like to see it brighten up. Is < 20 inches directly under one of the 20K 250W MH bulbs. Here is a bad picture of the clam, but you can see the faded colors. It was a bright pure blue when I purchased it. Anyone have any ideas?


Does anyone know of a study/resource that gives ideal PAR readings for clams instead of bulb wattages, bulb types and water depths?

how old are your bulbs?
20k bulbs lose their intensity much faster than lower kelvin bulbs. some people say they should be replaced every 6 months.
eitherway, 20k bulbs i don't think are enough to bring your maxima to full color. i would switch at least to a 14k, try the phoenix 250, they will provide you a blue almost similar to your 20k but with higher par values. i keep my clams under the same depth as you, around 20 inches but under 14ks with no problems in color.

Thanks EZ. Bulbs are around 6 months old, but the colors were fading even when I got it a few months ago when the bulbs were almost new. I'll switch to 14Ks when the current stock of 20Ks runs out (I got a few on the cheap to use up).

I want to use the PAR meter with the replacement bulbs to track their degradation over time. I'd love to find an article with suggested PAR ranges for Maximas.

I also took a CA reading and Alk reading yesterday. CA was off the charts - up around 600. Alk was around 7.5 DKH - probably being limited by the high CA. I am adjusting my dosing routine going to try and get a better balance - something around 450 and 11 - perhaps that will help. Other params were good. Undetectable nitrates on a low range kit and non-detectable phosphates with a sea chem kit.

EZ, I forgot to add my condolences for your Blue Maxima (and others)! :-(

Sorry to hear about your tank crash. We all dread that!! The crash I had (power outage without good battery backup) killed mostly fish and my vacation mishap only cost me a Superman Monti bleaching (will probably die).

Sorry again. Hang in there and build out that 37!

did you check Magnesium? could be the reason for your levels.
from what i remember a PAR value of 350-400 is a good amount for clams, especially crocea.

Hmm.. I have not checked Mag nor Strontium in a while. I'll check tonight or tomorrow when I recheck CA and ALK to see if they are trending in the right direction. I'll also take some PAR readings around my Crocea and Maxima.

It is odd that the gold Maxima in the 20H has lived and grown - although its colors are brownish. It's PAR reading is around 100. I guess the heavy Phyto feedings must keep it alive. I have a 150 W MH light that I am going to clip on that tank since the bulbs need to be replaced anyway. That will require a while to acclimate the inhabitants to the new light.

What are the signs of a stressed clam? The stress can be from several factors, ie. not enough calcium, light, ect.

Agree - at least 25% of the recent Fatheree book on Tridacnids is devoted to careful documentation of this fact. He makes a compelling argument that clams of any size can survive and grow on just light and dissolved nutrients. At interesting corollary to this is that they probably will not do well without direct feeding if NO3 is too close to zero - dissolved nitrate being a key nitrogen source for them.

While it may be technically true that tridacnids can survive via photosynthesis from a very early age, it is also known to be true that young clams eat more via filter feeding relative to their size than larger clams. Many species of corals don't need to be fed if they are sufficiently illuminated, but that doesn't mean the same coral won't do even better if it is fed. Tridacnids are filter feeders, even if they have additional means of nutrition. Having said this, I don't reccomend target feeding tridacnids, unless they are VERY small. Tridacnids utilize multiple nutritive strategies, and will attempt to make up any deficiencies in one area with another. In other words, if you are providing the bare minimum of light (are exactly at the compensation point) the energy needed for growth will be obtained via filter-feeding. It is known to be true, however, that no matter how much particulate matter they eat, they cannot survive without a certain minimum PAR.

As tridacnids grow, the mantle thickens, and the clam is capable of harnessing ever increasing levels of light. Tridacnids are fairly unique among reef inhabitants in that they are not photoinhibited easily. In other words, (at least in the case of the shallow water croceas and maximas) you would be very hard pressed to overilluminate a tridacnid. (look here:) http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/3/aafeature1/view

To those asking questions about what light sources are sufficient for keeping tridacnids: Keeping croceas and maximas under 150W metal halide light is considered to be the functional minimum, not an optimal reccomendation. If you want to approximate how much light they get in the wild, go get yourself a 1000W 10k metal halide fixture, and hang it directly over the clam. 150 watts of 10k MH light is just enough for them to survive and grow. Any light source which produces less PAR than that is insufficient for the animal to really thrive. (notice that I didn't say metal halide is necessary, but that you must provide the clam with at least as much usable energy (PAR) as a 150 10K bulb) It may survive under lower light, but it will survive the way you would on a diet of only ramen noodles: Malnutritioned, and just barely hanging in there. If you have less light than that, I would suggest a squamosa or a derasa. Don't get a Gigas unless you have a reeeeeeally large tank.

edit: Did I just reccomend derasas and squamosas to people in a forum devoted to really small reef tanks? Am I insane? Scratch that, these species get too big for nano tanks, and place huge demands on the calcium and Alk levels of the water. A single 10" squamosa or derasa in a small tank could easily deplete calcium and Alk to dangerously low levels in just a couple of days without supplementation. I guess if you kept them when small and had a bigger tank to put them in, that would work out.

Ok. So at the request of Phixion and out of my utter frustration at going through this and other threads I am posting this here. It comes from a thread regarding keeping a clam in a Red Sea Max. Hopefully it will answer allot of the questions for others that I walked away from this thread with.

QUOTE(Jaybugg13 @ Nov 30 2007, 01:02 PM)
Do a search you will find less optimistic responses.

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=114475 See here for answers.


Yeah. I read this. To me it was ultimately inconclusive. It had a strong anecdotal bias towards MH lighting as the author seemed to only have experience with them under MH. I also saw quite a few posts that had anecdotal evidence contraindicating the need for MH.

Same deal on a general web search. I saw the gambit ranging from definitely needs strong MH to only needing stock PC lighting. Pretty much every one came down to something along the lines of "I had a clam for X time under Y lights and they only do well under that kind of lighting and you are a fool for doing otherwise!" or "No! You are wrong! I had a clam X time under Z lights and it did fine!" Regardless they were all anecdotal statements based on personal experience.

No where did I see anything even remotely close to a unbiased study of lighting in artificial reef systems as it related to husbandry of clams. I did run across several government funded articles on clam husbandry from a commercial perspective, a whole lot of "I have one and it did fine under X" crap, and the following from Wetwebmedia which seems to be one of the sources considered "reliable" in terms of information.

Taken from: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_4/V4I...GotTridacna.htm

Quote:
"What I think happened to clams in the public mind set is that the light requirements of certain clams became generalized to be ‘common knowledge’ for the husbandry of all clams.

This can’t be farther from the truth because clams exist along a rather wide continuum regarding their needs for light. Derasa, squamosa, and gigas clams have the wonderful perk of being much less light needy and can be successfully kept in tanks 12-14 inches in depth or so under power compact lighting that is also capable of sustaining compatible coral life. T5 high output lights are also proving to be viable and less expensive options than metal halide for the successful husbandry of these beautiful creatures...

Tridacna crocea:

Middle to high up in your rockwork depending on color intensity of mantle
Stable footing
Moderate to higher flow
Live Rock if possible
Away from any potentially shading corals
T-5s, Metal Halide
10k bulbs fine
Relatively easy to keep though needs more light than bottom dwellers
Look for clams greater than 2 inches
Loves live plankton if possible

Tridacna maxima:

Middle to high up in your rockwork depending on color intensity of mantle
Stable footing
Moderate to higher flow
T-5s, Metal Halide
10k bulbs fine
Live Rock if possible
Away from any potentially shading corals
Relatively difficult to keep, hardest to keep of all the clams, imo
Look for clams greater than 2 inches
Loves live plankton if possible

Tridacna derasa:

Place on small piece of rock for ease of movement if needed
Do not place directly in sand- clam will blow away sand and attach to glass on bottom
Moderate flow
Power compacts, T-5s, Metal Halide
10k bulbs fine
Relatively easy to keep, actually harder to kill
Look for clams greater than 2 inches
Loves live plankton if possible
Leave room around the corals for lots of growth!!

Tridacna squamosa:

Place on small piece of rock for ease of movement if needed
Do not place directly in sand- clam will blow away sand and attach to glass on bottom
Moderate flow
Relatively easy to keep
Power compacts, T-5s, Metal Halide
10k bulbs fine
Look for clams greater than 2 inches
Loves live plankton if possible
Leave room around the clam for lots of growth!!

Tridacna gigas:

Place on small piece of rock for ease of movement if needed
Do not place directly in sand- clam will blow away sand and attach to glass on bottom
Moderate flow
Power compacts, T-5s, Metal Halide
10k bulbs fine
Relatively easy to keep
Look for clams greater than 2 inches
Loves live plankton if possible
Leave LOTS of room around the clam for lots of growth!
" End Quote.

From Natural Marine Aquarium - Reef Invertebrates by Anthony Calfo, Robert Fenner, Steven Pro:

Quote:
"Lighting requirements for Tridacnids is rather akin to lighting necessary for popular species of shallow water so-called SPS corals. Their needs may be regarded as moderate to bright... Under illuminated clams will change color: often darkening at fist in an attempt to cultivate more zooxanthellae with the purpose of trying to capture more of the diminished available light energy. In advanced states, such clam's color will pale as zooxanthellae are expelled under duress by the starving animal. Supplemental feeding of dissolved nutrients may stave off or delay the inevitable. Under-illuminated clams may survive in captivity for many months or even more than a year before perishing 'mysteriously' (a mystery only to the aquarist that does not realize that illumination was waning or inadequate).

Most clams are best kept under high intensity bulbs like metal halide lighting... A 175 watt lamp per for square feet will serve the purpose nicely in a water 20"-30" deep. Fluorescent lighting of various formats (PC, VHO) is fine and aesthetically attractive for shallow water environments less than 24" deep. When fluorescent lighting is utilized, clam/s should usually be placed in the top 18" of water."
End Quote

So with all that said it seems that it is possible to keep a clam(s) including T. Crocea under PC lighting if the clam is above 19" in the tank. For deeper than 19" it seems that one needs to look at MH.

Let the arguments begin and the fur fly!

That is great information fishhead2!

People get too hung up on the type of lighting and WATTS per gallon. 150MH over a clam that is on the bottom of a 24 inch tank offset from the center of the light may get less PAR than a clam on the bottom of a 12 inch deep tank under powerful PCs. PCs distribute the light much more evenly over a tank while MH are more of a point light source. That is why MH light penetrates deeper. The wetwebmedia folks that you referenced are also very big believers in owning a PAR meter for this very reason. WATTS per gallon and lighting types are only good rules of thumb to start with. PAR readings and compensation points are what really matters in the end. I broke down and bought an Apogee PAR meter so that I would have a better idea of which parts of my tank really were bright and when my lights really did need to be swapped out. I was surprised on both counts. I recommend light meters as well. Some local reef clubs own them and will sign them out to members if you don't want to spend the $$$.

I can vouch for that! Mind you, as long as you are/have supplementing/feed/proper lighting they do very well... I kept both a Squamosa and a Derasa in my 20g reef (pic in sig) and they grew pretty rapidly. I was dosing A TON of calcium because of them though, but I didn't mind because they were pretty!

my information posted was for the benefit of the clam.
what i'm trying to invoke is an environment your clam will thrive in, not what it will get by on. that being said, each clam is different. Every individual clam. Keep 3 Croceas under the same conditions, inches from each other, spawned at the same time. will you see equal growth in all three? no you will not, one will grow faster, one will grow slower, etc. This also applies to their needs in light. Though all three Croceas will appreciate a lot of light, if it comes down ultimately to the bare necessities it can "get by" with, all three will have different lighting minimums, just like some croceas can be found 20 feet into a reef while most are found in less than 7 feet of water. This will explain why there are some instances where a hobbyist will claim Crocea clams can be kept at the bottom of his tank under 90 watts of pcs and tell the whole world it is possible and laugh at those using higher end lighting systems.

I am not biased towards Metal Halides, I have seen tons of tridacnids absolutely thrive in t-5 setups. Its just that information is much more widely available on metal halides so I chose to shed as much information as I can on both subjects. I also do not believe that T-5s are cheaper alternatives to Metal Halide, in fact I think for the most part they are more expensive options, especially ones with individual reflectors and good reliable ballasts. Though the same can go for the Metal Halides, MH has a far wider variety of options to choose from as it has been around the hobby for a longer period of time. As a personal rule of thumb, I will not recommend placing light loving clam under anything less than 24 x 4 watts of T5s and more than 20 inches of depth. Light penetration effectiveness on T-5s setups are proportionate to their length (Grim Reefer & Sanjay) so if you have a tall aquarium greater than 24 inches with only 24 inches of T5 bulbs (WITH individual reflectors) you are more than likely risking your light loving clam (Croceas or Maximas) to light starvation.

As in clams loving phytoplankton, this should be corrected to clams loving organic matter. They will even take zooplankton (James F.) but their nutrition mostly comes in the form of Ammonia, Phosphates, Nitrates, and other nutrients. That being said, all clams are capable of surviving solely on photosynthesis from the minute they are born. Filter feeding however is always beneficial and definitely helps towards the success of your clam.

Maximas greater than 4 inches do not require a solid matter to attach to. All of my maximas this size have detached from rocks and are relying on their weight to hold them down, just like larger clams.

With all that being said, the ultimate way of measuring if they are receiving the light they need is through a PAR meter. I believe with a PAR value above 400 your maxima and crocea will have enough light to successfully grow. (although 400 is still much lower than what a natural reef environment will receive)

If you would still like to try your Croceas and Maximas under power compacts by all means you are welcome to try. but like i said, it is simply not optimal and there is no doubt that you are still in risk of losing another animal that could've been happier in another more caring hobbyist tank or in the wild.

Remember for every 1 success story there are probably more than 10 failures. Is it human nature to boast about their success' or their failures?

Agreed! That being said, 400 is a tough number to achieve (I think EZ posted where that reference value came from earlier in the thread). I have a tank with 2x250MH and 4x65WPCs and there are few areas in that tank that read 400 on my meter and they are all in very shallow water - < 10 inches!

YMMV is really the golden rule here I think. Clams can always adapt to new conditions, heck we're taking them from the wild and putting them under artificial lighting that's far inferior to natural sunlight. But how much decrease to keep them happy and still thriving is a matter of how adaptable the clam is to the given conditions.

I can't speak for others here, but I have 4 clams. 2 of them (a Derasa and Maxima) are both about "18 down from my 4x24w T5HO's ("24 length bulbs" with individual reflectors on the daylights. Both are doing fine under that. my other 2 clams are croceas, one about "6 under the light and the other about "12 under the light. The one that's deeper is actually growing faster it seems... I haven't had the derasa or maxima long enough to determine growth rate yet.

I've had two crocea in my bio8 with a 70w mh 14k and did great. They are doing even better in my 20L with 24" tek 4x24. The larger one is on the bottom in the middle. The small on is over in the corner midway up. The larger one gets more direct light while the one on the side less direct, but in any case both are doing the best i have seen. I have had them for a year now and looking forward to getting more.

Ezcompany-

Please accept my apologies if you thought I was attacking you or your position on clams. That was not my intention.

I completely agree. Every clam is different and every case is unique. But we do have to manage to what is considered the statistical norm for the animal we are trying to keep. What I mean by that is we need to setup an environment that is designed to provide good care for the proverbial 'average' clam.

The reason I was researching clams in the first place is that I happen to like clams and the way they look. Hence I wanted one, hopefully 3, for my tank. I learned the hard way that I was guilty of doing too much screaming and jumping in with both feet and not enough research before I put things in my tank and so before I add ANYTHING into my tank I make it a point to research it to death first.

What prompted me to post my findings was that I was very frustrated by a lack of unbiased (let me get to that term in a minute) information regarding what fell within the statistical norm (hereafter defined as average) for each subtype of clam out there on the web and I was urged to post this in this thread as well as where I originally posted it because if I had the question odds are others did too and from reading this thread it was hard to derive any other conclusion than MH or nothing.

Again, I am not detracting from your findings or beliefs nor am I challenging them. I am simply adding to them as I saw that you had a perspective that leaned heavily towards MH lighting. Nor do I dispute that MH is the best selection for lighting for pretty much everything that needs light in our tank.

I searched high and low here as well as RC and other places and I could not find one single paper or posting where there was anything even close to an empirical study of the effects of various lighting at various depths on clams. The best I could come up with was Fenner's book and that posting by the woman on wet web media. Everything else revolved around "I had a clam in X" or "You can't have a clam unless you have Z!" which was of absolutely zero value to me.

Your posting was the closest I came to a well thought out posting regarding the care and needs of clams other than the one I cite on wetwebmedia.



Ok. Let me now address the term bias. Again I apologize. I was using what I would call a "term of art*" that is used in my profession. I did so without consideration of the possibility that it could be misconstrued as a pejorative term that implied you were irrationally close minded.

In my use I meant it as shorthand for me saying that: you have experience primarily with only MH lighting and clams and all of your research has led you to believe that that is the best lighting for the clam to be happy and healthy in. And that you didn't have much experience personally with using anything other than MH and all of your findings led you to believe that anything other than MH was suboptimal but that you were not saying it couldn't be done only that you hadn't done it and didn't have any personal experience or evidence to contradict your position.

As you can see bias is allot easier to type than the above paragraph! But again my apologies and my bad for simply blowing past the fact that others may not be operating out of the same playbook as I was in terms of definitions of terms of art.

* Term of art;: A word or phrase used by professionals in a given field that has a precise meaning in a particular subject area.



They are, by their classification, filter feeding animals that are also capable of surviving completely on photosynthesis due to their symbiotic relation with the plankton inside their mantle. I don't see why this is in dispute.



Ok by me. I don't have a Maxima and didn't focus on them as a species that I wanted in my tank due to size restrictions so I couldn't comment either way.



Correct. This is also a bugaboo I have about the whole lighting wars that tend to go on here and elsewhere. The bottom line is that radiation (as in breadth and depth of intensity and diversity of spectrum) from the sun in the equatorial tropics will be much greater and more diverse than at latitudes above 60 degrees or for that matter anything we can hang over our tanks. Period. Get over it. Do the best with what you have.



Ok. Hold on. That sounds far too much like sour grapes...

The clams we are buying don't come from the wild. They are aquacultured as an agrobusiness and shipped in. They aren't pulled off a reef somewhere. And allot more of them are sold for human consumption. If you would like I will be happy to post the PDF published for farmers as a guide for said business that states this fact.

A 1 in 10 chance is still better than no chance. And for that matter I would say it much more likely that the 9 failures (a number that I think is higher than it should be but that is my personal opinion based on my own bias) are due to hobbyists that do not do their research, would never show up here, and are pretty much going to kill everything in their tank regardless.

Better that the clam be made into soup? Or left to languish in a LFS tank somewhere? Or not publishing all facts and points of view about the subject instead of just MH are best all else sucks? To do otherwise would mean that someone who does educate themselves has a better chance of keeping a healthy happy clam rather than passing on it because they can't afford or don't have MH?

FH2

oh...FH2 my post wasn't directed at anyone in particular, so no need to apologize or anything

my sour grapes part is just my say on people that still insist on keeping clams under power compacts. i'm aware that most of our clams are cultured in raceways such as CV Dinar and such, but there are still a lot of wild collected clams out there.

Fishhead2, I'd love to read the PDF and see how they run their farms. Can you post the link?

EZ C-

No worries mate. I went back and re-read my first post and yours and realized I was writing as if you all were using the same playbook I was and felt I should apologize.

I agree that it is a poor idea to just dump a clam in a tank with PC's without doing quite a bit of research and without looking at the exact clam you plan to buy and making sure it even could live happy and healthy under your lighting. That just pisses me off.

I would take a look at the article I am posting a link for brshriver mate. It is interesting just how much aquaculture goes on now compared to wild collecting. And for that matter how much aquacultured clams are being put on the market and for what. It was rather eye opening.

brshriver-

Here you go.

www.ctsa.org/upload/publication/ CTSA_143631672855187292852.pdf

FH2

here's a lagoon farming link

http://library.kcc.hawaii.edu/external/cts...ions/lagoon.pdf



http://library.kcc.hawaii.edu/external/cts...ns/GCManual.pdf

FH2 and EZ - Thanks for the links!

great info!
thanks

Hey EZ,

I just got another clam, this time a 2" maxima. Right now i have a 150w MH aand the clam is a little bit more than half way down in the tank. I imagine after reading the thread and from other's experience I should be fine, however, should I be supplementing with DT's or other micro algae. I have read several threads that say that they will survive fine with out supplementation, and others that say they should always have it. Thanks,

-Mike

hey Mike
As long as you feed ur fish/corals some, there is no need at all to feed the clam separately, as it has all the organics it needs. ur lighting should be good to go as well. post pics!

sooooooo lets say youve got everything right, lighting feeding & water chemistry, what if you have say bristleworms in your tank, can you still have a clam? or will the worms attack and kill it?

No worries there. I used to have tons of BWs in my tank and my clams always did fine. The only risk is that they could attempt to attack the byssal threads where the clam attaches itself to rocks, but usually they shouldn't attack the clam as long as it's healthy and living.