Derasa Clam causes coral bleaching due to chronic low nitrate

[acropora1981]

Lets assume that you are correct. What this means, is that the clam will require much more nitrogen than the SPS corals. If the nitrogen level drops, who's going to suffer first? It will be the clam.
As an example. Take an elephant, and a goat. Start out feeding them the same amount of food. Every day, reduce the amount of food evenly. Which animal will suffer malnutrition first? It will be the elephant. The goat will still have a surplus of food, while the elephant is starving. The elephant requires much more nutrition to maintain its biomass than the goat does, therefore, it will suffer first. In the scenario you describe, the clam with its greater biomass, will suffer before the SPS corals with their smaller biomass, when nutrients are limited.

You've neglected to consider that clams may be better at taking in nitrogen than SPS; the elephant in this case is able to eat the leaves at both the top and bottom of the tree, whereas the goat starves once the lower leaves are gone.

 

[toothman]

This is rather interesting, I searched clams because I would like to have my sps tank at the same great level as when there was a large gigas clam in it. I have a emperator angel in the tank and it ate and killed it.

I really think a clam is great for the health of sps, my tank is 600 total gallons and had a 14 inch gigas clam.

I would say regarding the aforementioned nutrient deficiency to just feed more or is that too simple. Oyster feast is great.

 

[toothman]

This is rather interesting, I searched clams because I would like to have my sps tank at the same great level as when there was a large gigas clam in it. I have a emperator angel in the tank and it ate and killed it.

I really think a clam is great for the health of sps, my tank is 600 total gallons and had a 14 inch gigas clam.

I would say regarding the aforementioned nutrient deficiency would be to just feed more or is that too simple. Oyster feast is great.

 

[rwb500]

Just to add my opinion, I agree that a clam does not at all function like a kidney. It only removes nitrogen to incorporate it into it's own tissue. If it's growing slows (from low nitrogen) it's rate of nitrogen uptake slows as well.

I can't imagine that a well-fed system would suffer any problems with too-low of nitrates for sps. Even if the clam is stripping them out, a daily feeding should provide enough to keep everything healthy. Many problems arise in ultra-low nutrient systems so I think this might be another example of when feeding actually helps. Most of you with clams and sps are not close to overfeeding as it is.

By feeding I mean either trying to feed corals or just feeding the fish. Or even just dumping some pellets in a fishless tank. Anything to provide nutrients. God knows we have the equipment to remove a little excess nutrients!

 

[Sk8r]

I have a 54 with a crocea, maxed at about 5" and very fat and blue. I have a runaway growth of euphyllia---I've fragged off enough to cover 3 dinnerplates this year and urgently need to do it again. I have over a gallon a day evaporation and I drip kalk and feed krill. And so far everyone is insanely happy, but that's not only lps, it's a very forgiving lps. My own take has been that the clam and the lps like the same type of environment, but the clam is not going to eat the krill: it will eat what gets poo'ed into the water by the moving creatures. IANACh, but seems to me that the 'niche' of lps and that of the clam is very similar, in terms of what makes it happy.

 

[coastalpt]

This is a really interesting thread...