Clams In Nano Tank

[CKSNano]

Thats cool

 

but as the only filter?

do they like take in NO3 24/7 ?

 

Yea they're great, my NO3 drops from 5ppm to 3ppm after adding the 2nd clam

[Physh1]

Yup.....I'm a big fan of filterless aquariums. It works for me very well. I fed my fish very other day and that helped keep the clams happy along with the DT's and Reef Solution they got. I've never had any problems with these setups. They don't take in food 24/7.

 

Cameron

[SeaFish]

how do you tell the difference if a clam is a corcea, maxima or dersa?

[reiple]

clams are helpful in bringing nitrate down. cool eh?

[BCOrchidGuy]

I've read many times that during aqua culture when clams are being grown out their water is treated with ammonia to make them grow faster. I know they consume nitrates in an established tank but do they still consume ammonia as they age?

[reefist]

Clams are pretty much like houseplants if given the proper conditions. Nanos seem to be the ideal situation for a clams since usually heavy skimming isn't employed. PCs are adequate for most clams except the most brilliantly colored croceas which tend to fade unless illuminated by halides. The mistakes most people make is in placement. Do your homework on the specific species that interests you and mimic it's biotope in miniature. Be careful if you are going to feed your clams, very little of food supplements actually reach your tanks inhabitants and many are not even small enough for your clam accept. What you end with is bioload.

[reiple]

Actually blue/violet/dark blue mantled clam require good lighting even MH. But green, red, gold and brown mantled clam would require much less and would even react adversely with heavy lighting. No common rule of thumb apply for lighting clams. These critters depend less on filter feeding as they get bigger and more on light. Nanos would do fine until the clam gets big. They won't benefit much on feeding (similar to coral feeding) but a bigger water volume will make them healthy.

 

Incidentally color as property of any object is also dependent on light hence light sources that bring out bluer spectrum will bring out good color both because of physics and physiology.

[Caesar777]

What kind of clam is it? A derasa or Gigas would be fine under that lighting (and with slightly less dead-on control of alk/calcium, just for new reefers), although both grow very quickly.

[frag]

Squamosa clams are not deep sea clams. They are found a little deeper than Croceas and Maximas but it is all relative. I would not consider 10 - 40 meters as deep sea and actinic alone will not suffice. I know some of you have anecdotal evidence that clams do just great under PC's and apparently NO, but I guarantee most people are killing them under these conditions. I would like to know how long you have had your clams and how many have died in your systems while you were trying to find one tuff enough to put up with inadequate lights. Caesar I am surprised that you would recommend a Gigas or a Deresa, the two largest clam species. This guy is going to put them in a nano, what is going to do with him? Tang police, where the heck are the clam police?

[cjl]

I've had a teardrop maxima in my 20H for 2 years under 175W MH; no supplemental feeding accept for fish food remnants.

[frag]

I think that in a 20 H a 175 watt halide is acceptable for Maximas. My point is that I do not believe larger clam species should by kept in smaller tanks without a long term plan for their survival. I also believe that Maximas and Croceas have a poor record of survival under non-halide lighting.

[Caesar777]

Maximas and croceas just DON'T survive without MH.

 

Like I said, the Derasa an Gigas will both outgrow the tank quickly. But most people upgrade from their nanos. Still, the point does stand.

 

cjl - Of course he's doing fine. The lighting is adequate, and at that age, he's above the 3" or below size where he'd need supplemental phyto feedings. Clams do eat nitrate, though, so he love syour fish.

 

Lest anyone forget, lighting is only ONE of the crucial parts of keeping clams. (And it IS a crucial point--there's no cutting corners there.) You can slap a halide fixture on a tank, but if you don't have a handle on the calcium/pH/alkalinity, then it'll die anyway. Take it from someone I know--she's lost three clams so far from her 120 with halides and supplemental VHO's. She just doesn't know what she's doing, and doesn't listen to us.

[MillerLite]

When the clam gets too big for the nano...you then should invite a few friends over, open the case of corona, and have a clam bake.

[Caesar777]

They eat 'em where they're from. They get 10-12 cents apiece from the wholesalers, but more from the locals, who prepare and eat them.

[Caesar777]

6 months for fluorescent bulbs of any kind. (Anything but halides--those last a year or so, sometimes more.) After 6 months, the spectrum starts to change on the bulbs and they put out more yellow and red rays, which promote algae growth. Bad.

 

Croceas NEED MH light. How long have you had it? I'll bet it isn't doing well. Post a photo or PM it to me. (If you PM because you want it kept private, then I'll keep it that way; I won't post anything relating to it here if that's the case.)

[beerz4us]

the usual recomendation for pc lighting is 12 months of use before the spectrum shifts so your probably due jester

sometimes you can tell when the spectrum shifts because you will start growing more algea

 

ceasar i keep a blue and teal croacea in my tank under a tek t5 fixture with 96 watts and it holds its color great its growing very well . i also keep i gigas and it is also very healthy and colorful

 

t5 is much stronger than pc though IMO

[Caesar777]

Ahh, it's 6 months. Occasionally 7.

[Six]

why not get a hippopus? a million times easier than tridacna species.

 

as long as they clams aren't wild, I say go for it. If you fail it only helps the hobby with the profits from your purchase.

 

That sounds crappy, but people waste their money on animals for their tanks when they dont know hide nor hair of how to keep them. There's no law against buying anything, so, I'm going to root for the aquaculture businesses. The more animals bought from them, the more money they make, the more reseach they can do to study and breed other animals. A nessecary evil.

[MillerLite]

why not get a hippopus? a million times easier than tridacna species.

 

as long as they clams aren't wild, I say go for it. If you fail it only helps the hobby with the profits from your purchase.

 

That sounds crappy, but people waste their money on animals for their tanks when they dont know hide nor hair of how to keep them. There's no law against buying anything, so, I'm going to root for the aquaculture businesses. The more animals bought from them, the more money they make, the more reseach they can do to study and breed other animals. A nessecary evil.

 

 

Here we go I think everyone here would love to buy only aquacultured corals for their reefs. Problem is that for some reason, businesses cant seem to keep the price of their aquacultured corals down to levels that are near reasonable.

 

Hmmm, $25 for wild caught, $99 for aquacultured, doesnt take a math genius to figure out which one I am going to buy, despite the benefits for the future of the corals. I like money in my pocket Someone needs to find a way to make aquacultured corals a viable option without asking people to may sometimes > 3 times the cost. You can mention overhead costs, viable specimens, blah blah blah...but when it comes down to it, most wild caught corals will do just as fine as those that are aquacultured (except for some of the more sensitive species). I think its more that they are banking on the consumer's guilt in buying wild caught specimens and suspect that the consumer will be willing to pay more.

 

My two cents...flame on!

[frag]

Well said. Tragedy of the Commons at its finest.

[Caesar777]

Most clams nowadays are aquacultured. Or at least ours are.

 

$25 for a Tridacna? Is it 3/4" long?

 

Honestly, some people just gouge on prices. We get farmed clams, and they're not at all expensive.

[frag]

The point stands that wild clams are cheaper at the wholesale and retail level. ORA wholesales clams from $15 to $30 per 1.5 inch Tridacna. Wild Croceas 4 inches go for as little wholesale as $12 - $15. Most clams in the industry are not tank raised. I think it is awesome that 777’s store carries mostly aqua cultured clams. However I assure you that most stores are going with wild Tridacnids and walking away with the profits.

[Caesar777]

True, captive-bred ones are more expensive, especially since there used to be around two dozen large tridacna breeding facilities worldwide, and that's dwindled to maybe half a dozen or so. But they honestly don't cost us much more than the regular ones, and we feel it's definitely worth it anyway. We still charge the same either way, and it's still below the local market value. The owner of the shop has THE manual for starting such a facility--it goes into immense detail, including specific materials and amounts of such, and diagrams illustrating how to put them together, and photos--and knew "the guy" who wrote it and created a large farm. Very cool.

 

Anyway.... I definitely encourage everyone to ask their LFS to carry aquacultured clams and corals whenever possible. (Much of our SPS is cultured overseas or here in the US, plus a few frags from locals' tanks.) Heck, soft corals--especially the common stuff like leathers, colts, Capnella, etc.--can be obtained in large numbers from local reefers, who usually have them coming out their ears. Granted, the amount of corals we take from the wild is hardly a dent compared to habitat destruction, pollution, and commerical fishing, but it IS an impact, however great or slight.

[Caesar777]

Your tank is overstocked, the reason for the cyano. You should have ONE small fish.

[Caesar777]

Nope; you need to get rid of all your fish except one. Not sure on the clam.