herefishiefishie
Premium Member
Every week I will be posting a new mollusk for discussion. Please post everything you know about this week's mollusk, to include pics, care and feeding habits, optimal environment, common names, and anything else you can think of.
This week's mollusk is the Great Clam, Tridacna maxima.
The maxima clam, or great clam, is arguably the most popular of the Tridacnid clams. It can be found (or tank-raised) in a variety of colors from drab brown to the much-prized turquoise. Many or most of the maxima clams now being offered in the hobby are tank- or farm-raised, so keeping this creature in our tanks is becoming rapidly less detrimental to the wild reef.
Maxima clams love light, because they harbor photosynthetic algae (zooxanthellae) in the tissues or their siphonal mantle, the colorful portion of the clam that drapes over the shell when the clam is fully open. The zooxanthellae use sunlight and metabolic waste from the clam to manufacture food for the clam. The clam also filter feeds from the water column to some degree, taking in only the smallest of phytoplankton. Maxima clams attach to a hard substrate by way of the byssal gland, an evolutionarily modified "foot" that grasps the rock with threadlike appendages. The shell has scutes to lend it structural support.
To keep your maxima happy, place it on rock close to an intense light source, MH being preferable. Keep the water clean. Dosing phytoplankton is optional (some authors maintain that this is necessary for long-term health, and others disagree). Keep the tank free of creatures that would harrass the clam or try to eat it.
In aquarist's tanks, clam are occasionally parasitized by pyramid snails, tiny mollusks. Often a predator, usually a wrasse, must be introduced to prevent or end this parasitization.
Please post your information on, experiences with, and pics of your maxima clams.
This week's mollusk is the Great Clam, Tridacna maxima.
The maxima clam, or great clam, is arguably the most popular of the Tridacnid clams. It can be found (or tank-raised) in a variety of colors from drab brown to the much-prized turquoise. Many or most of the maxima clams now being offered in the hobby are tank- or farm-raised, so keeping this creature in our tanks is becoming rapidly less detrimental to the wild reef.
Maxima clams love light, because they harbor photosynthetic algae (zooxanthellae) in the tissues or their siphonal mantle, the colorful portion of the clam that drapes over the shell when the clam is fully open. The zooxanthellae use sunlight and metabolic waste from the clam to manufacture food for the clam. The clam also filter feeds from the water column to some degree, taking in only the smallest of phytoplankton. Maxima clams attach to a hard substrate by way of the byssal gland, an evolutionarily modified "foot" that grasps the rock with threadlike appendages. The shell has scutes to lend it structural support.
To keep your maxima happy, place it on rock close to an intense light source, MH being preferable. Keep the water clean. Dosing phytoplankton is optional (some authors maintain that this is necessary for long-term health, and others disagree). Keep the tank free of creatures that would harrass the clam or try to eat it.
In aquarist's tanks, clam are occasionally parasitized by pyramid snails, tiny mollusks. Often a predator, usually a wrasse, must be introduced to prevent or end this parasitization.
Please post your information on, experiences with, and pics of your maxima clams.