Feeding clams

[vermonter310]

Wouldn't it be possible for someone with less than MH lights to keep a crocea, Maxima or other high light clam by feeding it Phyto (or similar) on a regular basis to make up for the lack of light?

Looking forward to comments.

Mike

 

[mbbuna]

no

 

[vermonter310]

Man I hate these kinds of responses. Why do you bother?

 

[cristhiam]

I have a Crocea 4-5" and a baby maxima 1.5 - 2" under VHO lights, I feed phyto every 3 to 4 days. I know baby clams needs feeding, but past the 3" they require light. The croceas are the ones that require the most light. I say put them high on your rockwork.

 

[rmesola]

in any event, if you kept clams in suboptimal light and they survived they would eventually lose their beautiful color .... you'll have this dull ugly brown clam.... IMO not worth the cost of phyto feeds or DT's

On the other hand I bought my crocea from a guy who had it under VHO for 2 years... but 2 weeks in my tank under 400W MH it went from brown to nice blue pattern...

 

[vermonter310]

Could you suggest a good (recently published) book on Giant clams?

thanks for the replys.

Mike

 

[cristhiam]

There's an article on the Marine and Fish Reef 2004 annual, page 19 about clams by Julian Sprung, it says that clams can adjust to different levels of lighting squamosas, maximas, derasa and gigas, the crocea been one of the hardest to keep and require strong lights. So far I have not seen my crocea browning.

 

[vermonter310]

Thanks

How long has it been in your tank?

 

[cristhiam]

the baby maxima about 3 1/2 months and put up about 1/4" new shell. The crocea is only 4 weeks to soon to tell but it's fully open and keeping the color. I have a pic of the baby maxima in the gallery and I will be uploading the crocea soon.

 

[inlandreef]

I agree with mbbuna

 

[Vili_Shark]

Clams can be kept under T5, incld. Crocea.
In fact I saw some amazing results with T5s in SPS and Clams tanks.
If you have the budget to put a 80W T5 HO every 2.5 to 3" and your tank is not more than 27" high,add to this a high quality reflector, I think you can achieve some results that will surprise ya.
There are alot of bad T5 bulbs in the market, I'd suggest you to look for Deltec, ATI, I dont know of the American brands, they might be good.
Dont go on the Chinese T5 they dont have the same output.