Clam food: what do you feed?

[ejmeier]

I just dump it in and let my closed loop do the rest.

Clams (and most coral for that matter) can't handle a sudden rush of food, they like to slowly filter the phytoplankton from the water.

From what I have heard, if you take a pipette and squirt a bunch of food into the clam, it will, at best, cough the food up in chunks and, at worst, choke on the food and die. I have heard of this happening to at least one reefer.

 

[dragon_slayer]

depends on the size of the clam if it needs "spot" feeding or not.

any clam less then 3" needs target feeding IMO.

you dont take and squirt food into their "mouth". you place a container over them and add the phyto inside the container. the clam will filter it out quite quickly.

for my 2" +/- maxima's i use a "Dixie" cup with a single small hole in the bottom. i place it over the clam and work it down into the DSB to hold it in place, then i inject 10ml of very concentrated phyto into the hole in the cup. the inside of the cup becomes so clouded that you can hardly see the clam. the clam never "sneezes" and within 3 min the cup is clear so i remove it and the clams just smile and grow.

hth
kc

 

[ADS]

If you're looking for low maintenance foods for clams look at ESV spray dried phytoplankton. I used this several years ago with overall good results( notable growth of all filter feeders)
The ESV really should be blended to avoid clumping but it isn't essential.
The other phyto foods, such as Kent's, are not live and really can clump if not mixed thoroughly(clams need small particles ~10microns or less).
Live culturing is not for everybody but if you have a large ,heavily fed system it may be the next transition to make. It does take some patience however.
Hope this helps-
Adam