Clams coming: what am I forgetting?

piercho

New member
I would appreciate your advice. I will recieve a 4" squamosa and 3" maxima from Barry in a week. These will be my first clams. Here is my general plan for integrating them. Please offer your comments.

The clams will go in a isolation tank for 7 days after I recieve them from Barry. Barry will have had them for nearly two weeks. The q tank lighting is PC and the clams will go on eggcrate so that I can lift them very close to the PC lights. The tank is heavily skimmed for it's size and I'll run carbon changed frequently. If the clams are doing well and I can't find any parasites doing nightly inspections, they will then go in the main tank. Both will initially go on the sand bed, with the maxima brought up closer to the 250W Iwasakis by raising it's level weekly. The maxima will be encourage to attach to a shell so that he can be moved without cutting bysal filaments. The maxima is a very bright blue, so I'm assuming that it will want intense light.

My tank is 15 months old and i've kept stony coral for 11 months. I've had no mortalities of the coral or anemones that I've introduced, so I assume that I have some basics down. I keep Ca above 400, TA around 3.0 meq/L, and the pH is stable near 8.1. SG is 1.0255 at 81F. Makeup is with limewater, and I use B-ionic if needed. The plan is to start dosing Koral VitF (B-fortified yeast) and DT's (nano), ramping up to the recommended dosage of each if water quality can be maintained. I already have a lot of self-spreading fanworms and sponges without using these supplements. I use a 6' tall air CC skimmer almost continuously on this tank, and run enough carbon to clear the yellow in the water about every other week. My habit is large water changes (IO) every 4-8 weeks.

I've read D. Knop's "Giant Clams" and all his articles, a couple of times each.
 
Well, it is always good to see a well-educated clammer. :D
Though if you get a chance I would read the articles and book a few more times. If you read them enough, you will find that Knop's book and articles contain the answers to pretty much every clam question there is.

Quarantining is a very good idea. However, know that you will be changing the clam's environment yet again when you move them into your MH lighted tank. Acclimate them slowly. Do the water params in each tank match? We want to minimize stress as much as possible from the quarantine tank to the main tank.

Also, be sure to read the section in Knop's book about nitrates. Your heavy skimming and use of carbon may deplete this. Test for it. Everything else sounds good.

Observe your clams carefully in quarantine. Put them as close to the PC's as possible.
 
Minimize stress!

Minimize stress!

Just something simple that I do to minimize stress on all new animals coming from my q tank to my show tank. I keep the q tank (10 gal) on a small cart which is lower than my show tank. After a successful q period I lower the water level in the q tank by 1/4 and drip down slowly from my show tank using air line tubing and a valve to control flow til tank is full again. I then give the animal 24 hours and if everything is ok I do the switch. It has worked for me so far without fail. I thought you may like this method since you seem to value water changes.
 
Thanks for the replies. Barry also said that one more tank change would be hard on them. I was going to do incremental water replacements (reef tank to q tank), but a trickle change sounds better.
 
I have to agree with cromax's comment regarding nitrates. Clams are filter feeders, so anything that will decrease dissoved organic and nitrogen sources will reduce the amount of food for the clams. While clams do use the light for obtaining some food, they still need other nutrients and without these the clams will not grow very rapidly or be as healthy; if they did not need these nutrients, then the forces of evolution would have favored clams without filter feeding organs. Also, watch the calcium/alkalinity level in your tank once the clams settle in. They use a lot of calcium and will compete with the corals for this mineral, so you may find that depending on how much limewater you add, you may have to increase the amount or purchase a calcium reactor, especially if the limewater is added as part of evaporative makeup water and your water loss due to evaporation is low. I have three (3) clams in my 100g tank (1 large derasa, 1 large squamosa, and 1 small squamosa), all on the sand, and under 400 watts of PC lighting. I also several active fish (tang, grouper, cardinals) that are fed 3 times/week, an Aqua C skimmer cleaned twice/week, and a Korallin calcium reactor. My clams are doing very well with these conditions, with all clams showing rapid shell and body growth. I suspect that the amount of light I have is just adequate for where the clams are placed in my tank, but the food from what the fish generate and the constant calcium/alkalinity source from the reactor, combined with the limewater makeup water is more then compensating and fueling the clams growth.

I am planning to upgrade to 2x250 watts MH, so it will be interesting to see what the increase PAR will have on the clams. Sorry for the long winded reply :)
 
Minimize Stress!!!

Minimize Stress!!!

I am glad that you like the idea of trickle down or drip down as I call it. I learned how to do that from a LFS that I worked at as a kid. The LFS would drip down black mollies from fresh water to SW by putting just enough fresh water in a 5 gal bucket to keep them alive and then do a drip down to salt. We would use the black mollies to cycle tanks and sell them for that purpose. The mollies are healthier and do breed in SW and for under five bucks you can have enough fish to cycle without the worry of loss of expensive fish. After the tank cycles I usually just leave them in there because breeding mollies = free food and if I loose them to predatory fish it is better than finding a home for cheap damsels.:D
 
Thanks for the warnings on running the tank to "lean". The big 6' CC skimmer is a new thing that replaces a small venturi skimmer that I had been using 24 hours a day. I haven't used the CC long enough to see how it impacts the tank as far as the existing filter feeders. It is obviously much more sensitive to what is in the water than the venturi skimmer was, and can pull more and denser foam out. I understand that the clams can look OK but still be starving. My plan is to cut back on skimmer use over time, and eventually just use the skimmer intermittently. Plus, I'll be adding the live yeast and nano daily.
 
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