Anyone else notice - Crocea overload, maxima shortage?

[Peabody]

Anyone else notice this trend? I've seen it happen before. No one can get a gigas for 18 months and then all the sudden they're everywhere.

There seems to be an abundance of great croceas locally and on online sites, and maximas are hard to come by now. Clams-Direct.com made a mention recently of how there are few Maximas coming in right now.

Am I worried, heck no. 18 months from now or whenever everything could do a 180. I'm sure there are thousands of little Maximas out there waiting to finish growing enough so they can be sent out for the trade.

 

[Jeremy Blaze]

There was a thread about this awhile back. I am sure you will see some in the near future.

 

[Peabody]

Oh yeah, I'm not worried. Just think it's interesting. It's like Maximas are not in season

And missed the earlier thread, I'll have to check it out.

 

[Fishfreak218]

My LFS get them in all the time (actually i picked one uptoday!) but they are never over 2" maybe rarly.. but i havnt seen them over 2" they get full grown Crocea Clams though and small ones

 

[Flameangel]

I noticed the same thing and then yesterday my LFS had several. Two were in the 3 to 4 inch range, I picked up one of them. It is beautiful .

Connie

 

[Jeremy Blaze]

I went to an LFS yesterday, and they had about a dozen blue maximas, all about 2". They also had a beautiful 4" light blue maxima, for $120.

 

[Julio]

it seems liek the only Maximas you can get right now are no bigger than 2" and they are charging an arm from them.

 

[Barry N.]

Am I worried, heck no. 18 months from now or whenever everything could do a 180. I'm sure there are thousands of little Maximas out there waiting to finish growing enough so they can be sent out for the trade.

You hit it on nail. There is a lot of clam farms springing up and in about a year or too, there will be a lot of them. The ones that are 2" or less are a challenge to keep.

We have been keeping track of mortality of different species over the course of 5 years and Tridacna maxima appears to be the hardest to keep of the Tridacnids IOE!

 

[JmLee]

i bought a 2 1/2 inch maxima a week ago for 40 bucks! what do you guys think about that price?.

 

[Ti]

I still see maxima's in my area

 

[capefear]

i just ordered some nice maxima's form clams direct, he still has a few left.

 

[The steven liu]

I think it's just because Crocea generally has more intense coloring and have a larger demand therefore all the breeding facility will devote more resources to farm an unproportionally large amount of crocea compare to other clams. Don't get me wrong I love clams and all kinds of them, but seeing so many croceas all the time and barely ever see any hippos or gigas is making kind of sick.. I want varieties in the industry, not quantity.

 

[Peabody]

But see...just two years or so ago there seemed to be 20 amazing maximas for every crocea. Now it seems the opposite. The maximas clams' direct have gotten in are nothing compared to what even they have had in the past. Look at the picture of the green max on his home page. THAT is what I'm talking about I haven't seen anything that colorful in a while.

 

[Azurel]

I was told that the Farmers had over supplied the industry and began to run out of larger max's. They only had 2'' left and it would be at least a year or 2 before we start to see some 3''-4'' inches coming back in the market once these grow out.

 

[Barry N.]

Over the past 4-5 years the demand has taken a toll on larger maximas (Farmed) and a large amount is being shipped to other countries for the food market. The Marshall Islands use to be one of the larger farms but now they have nothing to ship except maximas in the 1-2" range. Since it takes about 2 years to raises a 2" clam, it may be a few more years before we see these cultured maximas any larger. The ones that are coming in that are larger are wild caught and there in not a lot of collectors getting them. Bali, Tonga and some other countries have farms up and running now but it take years to grow them out and to get CITIES for them.

The larger ones ( wild ) that are coming in, the importers charge the dealers a much larger price since they know there is a demand for them, so then the dealer has to charge a larger markup to make their profit margin which is less than it was 5 years ago.

It all comes down to supply in demand! Example, look at the price of Blue Squamosas, wait a year or two and you can get one for 50% less than you now see.

 

[Azurel]

Yup I agree with everything you said.....Hey when you get these Blue squamies for 50% less then now make sure you send me an e-mail.....LOL. That would be nice half the price, we can only hope.

 

[Barry N.]

when you get these Blue squamies for 50% less then now make sure you send me an e-mail..

You and about 50 others. :lol: