Hey gang! Check this out!

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1723196

There have been instances where folks have said there clams spawned in their tanks. But this guy has a pic of his deresa that actually produced a baby. And incredibly, it looks like the tank was not taken care of for quite some time while they were moving!! So while we're all concerned about pristine water conditions, maybe we need them to get a little dirty?

Thought I'd post the pic here in case you can't see it from the link:

I've always read that clams need a lot of nutrients so that makes sense.

You should post the pics on here, I am not a member so I cannot view them.

Edit: Nvm all good

Done!

Lucky. I wonder if he's gonna get an award.

Yeah....he gets a FREE tridacnid clam!!!!!

How do we know the clam as simply just to small to notice prior to now?

It could be the crappy water conditions stressed the clam into spawning. That makes more sense than dirty water was soooo good for the clam it decided to spawn.

Actually clams like a bit of nitrate and phosphate in the water. They use fertilizer in clam farms to promote growth and spawning.

Sure they like a little but from the RC post it sounded like he hadn't changed the water or payed attention besides top off to the tank in 6 months. With trace minerals probably depleted and calcium and mag levels low I'd imagine the clams would be pretty stressed and spawning to hope their genes can escape the declining health of the local water.

I am skeptical.

There isn't enough proof documented to say definitively that this smaller clam is in fact the offspring of the larger clam. I wouldn't consider this to be "The first documented reproduction of a clam in an close system".

Although it is technically possible for a single spawning derasa to reproduce in a closed system, it is pretty far from probable. I think if someone is going to claim this sort of event has occurred, they better have some good evidence to prove their theory correct.

they breed clams all the time though don't they?

Not in small closed systems like aquariums! Most of the time they are pumping ocean water through their large vats. If you ever see pictures of clam breeding facilities overseas, they are pretty large scale and outdoors.

+1. i dont think it's very feasible that that baby clam just survived on the dirty water. baby clams need massive amounts off food for them to grow and im pretty sure that his tank would have supported the amount needed to rear the baby.


just wanted to point out that he said in his RC post that he had "~8-10 inch clams" living in that aquarium.

oh okay I get it...I thought it was about breeding them rather than how they were bred....carry on then!

I read that too. Regardless I felt it was a good idea to mention that these clams are actually capable of breeding on their own. More or less to say that just because he has two derasas, doesn't mean they created offspring using both of their genetic material. If you can imagine both clams releasing sperm and eggs into the water column, there is just as much of a chance (if the spawning was at all successful) that the young clam is a product of the genetic material from the same clam.

OIC. well thats a good tidbit of info you provided. i for one did not know clams could self replicate.

at my school we have been trying to spawn clams.... we have gotten them to the spawn sperm and eggs but we cant get the baby clams to live over 24 hours.. so we are still working on it hopefully for sucess soon!!!

Good point to mention!

I do not doubt that the clams are able to successfully spawn and produce viable fertilized eggs it's a matter of the planktonic stages surviving in our tanks. We have a ridiculous amount of obstacles in our aquariums that would destroy small floating "baby clams" like power heads, skimmers, overflows, returns, fish, corals, etc.

Even when people are trying to breed clams in a university environment after tons of research, preparation, and special care, it still proves to be incredibly difficult.

That is why I am so skeptical.

Been there, done that, lol.

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=152288&hl=

YESSS!!!!!!!!!

I just realized I am actually capable of being a real prick on RC. I can't help it...

Hey glenn.... I saw your thread. Do you still have the clam, any updates, pics, etc.?




LOL!! TJ I just saw yor posts over "there"! Don't let 'em get to you!

Did you see it before I edited my last line out? hahaha... Oh dear...

Let's see........ Was it where you told them to get their head out of their "posterior area"? I thought it was funny!!

But you know, you gotta be careful over there.... Could get you banned!

Hahaha yeah! I felt bad after which is why I removed it. I don't care if they ban me - I am not active on that forum. I just have a membership so I can view photos and threads that other people link to from this forum .

It would be par for the course there

I am still battling on RC to get some more information out of the poster. One of the Team RC members has posted as well. Nothing all that serious going down - just a whole lot of TJ haters lol. Nobody likes the fact that I am not willing to accept this "oh so obvious truth" without some more information and proof.

Awe well. All I want is to learn as much as I can about what he did that allowed such a killer event to go down with success (as minimal as one survivng offspring is).

Here's my angle. For sure millions of clams are spawned commercially every year. I'm not going to compare the process, but it would seem surprising to have happen in a tank, but it could happen.
Two odd things about it stand out though.
Since clams are broadcast spawners, I'd be more convinced if the clam was on the rock or something somewhere. Or if there were a bunch of them all over the tank.
Secondly, while oysters will settle on top of other oysters, and while I've only seen hundreds of clams in the wild (and that's really not very many to observe any oddities in behavior), I've never seen a clam other than as a solitary individual, or put another way, I've not seen them attached to each other like that. They burrow into rock with only their mantles sticking out and lead a solitary existence, though you will see groups within inches of each other quite often.

eh...would have to disagree there with some species at least. the way to farm clams in the water is to lay down lots of clam shells, they have much higher settlement numbers on their own shells for some reason or another. All the big clam mariculture operations do it, just laying down that "seed" will pretty much guarantee you some clams. Not the same species of course when they do it down here, but that is how they do it.

No i don't have it anymore. Unfortunately I stressed it beyond recovery a long time ago when trying to move it. The thing grew so fast that it outgrew my tank in about a year.

John I agree with you there, same as with oysters, the spat seem to prefer settling on the old shells, but with the Crocea clams, I've never seen two attached together in the wild. Don't know what the difference is, other than the substrates are different. Oysters and clams around here have a lot less solid substrate to settle on so they don't get buried, but in the places I've seen Crocea's they were always on solid ground, and usually bored in with just their mantles exposed.

yeah I don't know much about how it works, but that just seems to be how it works....at least for the clams they mariculture...no idea how his clam reproduces..I just don't think the guy is making it up.

I am the fence about it. It is something someone could very easily stage, and would be extremely rare for it to "accidentally" happen without him noticing the baby until it is near 1" in size.

I just want more info. Probably not going to happen any time soon cause they closed the thread down on RC.