Bowl feeding

[Snowsrfr]

I picked up a maxima that is about 2 inches from my local fish store yesterday. I know that it's suggested to bowl feed them while they are this small and was looking for a link to the details of this or any advice. Tried to search the site but due to the imense popularity of reefcentral the search function is unavailable. Also, do I need live phyto for bowl feeding or will soemthing along the lines of Kents Phtyomax be sufficient? Thanks.

 

[The steven liu]

I will need live phyto to feed clams. The clams are very particular of their food size. Even different species of phyto will not be accepted by clams. They will take live phyto readily most of the time but once the phyto is dead, the shape and form of the creature will change thus the clam will not recognize it as a food item. I have never done bowl feed so I am not sure about the procedure but I am afraid of taking clams in and out of a tank to cause stress. you can probably start by dispensing live phyto in the clam's vicinity. Make sure you shut your mechanical filter and skimmer off for an hour so that the phyto don't just get filtered out of the system rightaway.

 

[smcnally]

It is very easy and IMO not stressfull at all. I take a tupperware bowl and put it in the tank. Place the cam and it's rock in the bowl and lift it all out. Put enough phyto in the water so it has a light green tint. About 20 minutes later, the water is cleared up and the clam is done eating.

 

[Freed]

Are the phyto big enough to see individually or way too small to even be seen?

 

[mbbuna]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6722855#post6722855 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Freed
Are the phyto big enough to see individually or way too small to even be seen?

way too small

 

[critterkeeper]

If you have several, fishes in your tank then just put the clam under metal halide lighting and leave it alone.

Still, if you feel like you have to feed it - I'll tell you that it is a proven fact that they'll eat just about anything. Whether they need it, or will actually digest and use it is a different question, as they are well known for eating lots of particulate foods - then crapping them out later, undigested.

There is absolutely no experimentally proven evidence that suggestes that one type of food is better than another, either. So, I'd be far more worried about my water quality than whether or not a tridacnid would eat take what I added.

 

[Opcn]

I disagree with critter keeper in everything that was said.

mechanical filtration turns our water over at phenominal rates and scrubs it clean of phytoplankton, and protien skimmers even more so, then there are tiny zooplankton and filterfeeders feeding off of what is left, the tiny closed system is nothing like the ocean in that there is not a huge bounty of food coming constantly.

Clams will not eat just about anything, what happens is that just about anything will go into there siphons, making it into the digestive tract is an entirely different story, what happens is that large things go in the clam and get stuck in the gills and then the clam sneezes them out undigested, and there have been scientific studies done, check out clams direct, they found that infant mortality was the lowest with DT's phytoplankton, with phyto feast live coming in a close second at about 5% each, some phyto products produced mortality as high as 60%.

Infact, Critterkeeper is either talking out of the wrong siphon or just wants your clam to die, that post should be deleted.

 

[mbbuna]

Opcn

you should do a little research on who critterkeeper is before you say he's talking out the you know what.

Heres critterkeeper (James) with Barry from ClamsDirect
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/cav1i3/Clam_care/Clam_care.htm

and heres a thread on what hes working on now

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=696004&highlight=working+on+a+clam+book

do a google search, he got quite an impressive resume

 

[Reefcherie]

Disagreement is fine, but let's try to keep this friendly and constructive please.

As mbbuna points out, critterkeeper clearly has an interest in Tridacnid clams, so I don't think he's intentionally trying to give bad advice. I am not aware of reputable scientific study existing that proves conclusively exactly what size and type of particle Tridacnid clams can best utilize. What they take in vs. what is utilized can indeed be two different things.

At the same time, Barry N. has been keeping and selling clams for many years now and has been an advocate in the past of feeding of live phytoplankton to clams under 3", since their mantles provide a smaller surface area for photosynthesis w/ their zooxanthellae to take place. Many other people also believe feeding live phyto to small clams is either critically important or at least beneficial.

Who's right? Tough to say w/o scientific research to point to. You may need to read all you can and come to your own conclusion. Personally, I'm sticking w/ the idea of bowl feeding small clams simply because it seemed to work out well for me. I used live phytoplankton that I'd cultured myself. For technique - I used the same method as smcnally posted - but also made sure the water stayed warm enough by setting the little bowl on top of my Eurobracing but not directly under the lights. The clams grew and thrived. Perhaps they would have thrive anyway w/ my strong MH lighting, good water quality and lots of particulate matter from many sources in my diverse tank - no way to know. If I chose to buy another small clam, I would use the method again, however.

If scientific studies come out that shed more light on clam feeding, I'd love to read them and will try to keep an open mind.

 

[critterkeeper]

Here are a few to start with. Keep in mind that these aren't about tridacnid specifically (because no such studies have been done on them), but they have essentially the same feeding/digestive apparati and "work" the same way. For example - Mytilus isn't Cerastoderma, which isn't Aequipecten, either.... (see title of first paper).

If you think you know how clams feeds, but you've never read Tamburri & Zimmer-Faust (1996), you'll be amazed (at how wrong some people are).


Lehane, C. and J. Davenport. 2002. Ingestion of mesoplankton by three species of bivalve; Mytilus edulis, Cerastoderma edule, and Aequipecten opercularis. Journal of the Marine Biological Association U.K. 82:615-619.

Langdon C.J. and R.I.E. Newell. 1990. Utilization of detritus and bacteria as food sources by 2 bivalve suspension-feeders, the oyster Crassostrea virginica and the mussel Geukensia demissa. Marine Ecology Progress Series 58:299-310.

Maruyama, T. and G. Heslinga. 1997. Fecal discharge of zooxanthellae in the giant clam Tridacna derasa with reference to their in situ growth rate. Marine Biology 127:473-477.

Tamburri, M.N. and R.K. Zimmer-Faust. 1996. Suspension feeding: Basic mechanisms controlling recognition and ingestion of larvae. Limnology and Oceanography 41(6):1188-1197.

Wong, W.H. and J.S. Levinton. 2004. Culture of the blue mussel Mytilus edulis (Linnaeus, 1758) fed both phytoplankton and zooplankton: a microcosm experiment. Aquaculture Research 35:965-969.

Wong, W.H., J.S. Levington, B.S. Twining, N.S. Fisher, K.P. Brendan, and A.K. Alt. 2003. Carbon assimilation from rotifer Branchionus plicatilis by mussels, Mytilus edulis and Perna viridis: a potential food web link between zooplankton and benthic suspension feeders in the marine system. Marine Ecology Progress Series 253:175-182.

 

[critterkeeper]

BTW - responses like Opcn's are why I don't spend nearly as much time on the forums as I should...

I forgot a good one: Ricard & Salvat (1977) gives a discussion of feeding maximas with zooplankton larger than 240um (rotifer size) - and finding fragments of them in the feces within 24 hours. Yes, they ate and digested them.

My tridacnids book will be out in a few months, so I won't give away everything here. I've worked my behind off to find everything possible on the subject - and I've found a lot more than you'd believe.



Also, were the clams in Barry's experiment lost because they ate food that killed them (VERY unlikely that a product would be toxic), or did one product affect water quality (more)negatively? Did they starve due to lack of carbon source, or maybe a lack of nitrogen? Think about it, and go read my initial post again.

Or, with such a small experimental population, could he have simply had bad luck in one tank, or two and good luck in another? It happens, and that's why you don't find many experiments being done. Barry tried to see what he could find out using his own money which is highly commendable, but to really do it right, you'd need hundreds of clams at different sizes, dozens of identical tanks and systems, and at least a year, etc. That's a lot of money and work - to find out if someone else's product works better than someone else's. Not happening. Well, maybe if I win the lottery...

 

[Reefcherie]

Thanks for the links. I have some reading to do!