1st time bowl feeding my new crocea

[magma01]

I fed my new crocea for the first time last night. I used a container with some tank wanter. enough to cover the clam and i just kinda floated the container in the tank. I fed it DT.

the clam was in the bowl for about 2 mins and it ejected a stream of water about 2 feet high. this can't be normal. after that I put it back into the tank and it was retracted for a while and didn't look happy at all.

Did I put too much phyto in? Or is the DT bad? The label on the DT says it's good until 11 '05.

 

[hollback]

Yeah, you might have put too much DT's in.

I'm not a big fan of removing the clam for feeding. I think you cause more stress than needed doing so. Directly feeding your tank with DT's once a week would be just fine, IME.

 

[magma01]

Yeah, I'm starting feel that moving the clam around doesn't make it too happy.

 

[grimmjohn]

If it got water two feet high then it might be too big to need direct feeding?

Cheers,

grimmjohn

 

[magma01]

it's definitely less than 3". I was under the impression that i should feed if it's less than 3".

 

[NoobieNemo]

how can you tell if your clam needs food?

 

[MrPike]

I too believe moving the clam out into a separate bowl was more stressful on my clam then the benifits it recieved. I got a 2 inch maxima that I bowl fed about 5 times, and every time it took a few hours for it to open back up to normal. I stopped bowl feeding since it was such a pain, and kind of expected my clam to die, but it is doing great.

That being said, check the boards on clamsdirect.com Barry is an expert on clams and recommends bowl feeding, so, its hard to recommend anything with my little knowledge against his extensive knowledge...

 

[JR719]

Another route to try is a pop bottle. Cut the bottom off a 2 litre bottle. Keep the cap on.... put the bottle in your tank inverted so it fills around 3/4 or more. Then add a "little" phyto. Turn it over and place over the clam. Wait around 2 to 3 minutes and remove the bottle. Cheap and easy. I did it a couple of times then found a clear tube around 4 1/2 inches. I cut it to where I could place around the clam and the other end was out of the tank. I then poured in the dt's. Worked great. And when the tube or bottle is removed, the leftover feeds the tank.