Planning for a clam - some questions

[Silly clownfish]

I am planning to get a clam in a couple of months (after a vacation) and want to plan everything out right. *The big questions I have at the moment are type and quarantine. *So some background first:

My tank is a 75g, with 20g sump, so I figure by the time I account for rock, about 75 g of actual water. *Reefbreeders 32" photon, *Reef Octopus NWB150, no reactors, small in-sump fuge, a couple of powerheads (good, but not crazy circulation). *Upgraded from a 16 year old 30 in July 2014, all live rock either from that tank or spent a year in a seeding tank in the basement prior to setting up the current tank.
current livestock: ocelaris clown, flame hawk, randalli goby, McCosker's wrasse, one spot foxface rabbitfish, serpent star, brittle star, Coral banded shrimp, emerald shrimp, misc snails, frogspawn, toadstool leather, misc mushrooms, red cap monti, spongodes, briarium
Water parameters are pretty steady at:
Ph: 8.2-8.4
Alk 10-11 dKh
Calcium: 420-450
Magnesium: 1400
Phosphates: 0.02-0.03
No measurable ammonia, nitrite, nitrate
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 80

I don't have a PAR meter, but based on the charts for my light and the intensity I run them at (peak around 60%), I think my level at the sand bed is about 200. *My spongode (low in the tank) and frogspawn (midway up, off to side) don't like the lights higher.

So I have a couple of ledges that are possible placements, where I think the PAR would be 300-600. *I don't want a clam that will outgrow my tank, and kinda have my heart set on blue or turquoise. *So I am thinking a maxima. *I know crocea stay smaller, but require more light and are apparently harder to keep happy. Any thoughts?

My other conern is quarantining. *My old 30g is my QT, but only has 200w of VHO lighting (actinic and 50/50). *I can use a shelf to get the clam close to the lights, but am concerned how it will fare. *Also how long is it necessary to QT a clam. *I'm thinking that if you don't want to chance that it is a carrier of ich, 12 weeks, just like the fallow period of an infected tank. *That is how long I quarantined my most recent coral acquistions. *It felt like forever. *What do most people do?

Thanks in advance,

Kim

 

[moliken]

u should see any signs of probs within a week or two or quarantining. a true absolute q of a clam should be 120 days to eliminate pyram snail parasites. i never did it that long, but i checked and cleaned every day. my qt lasted about three weeks each time. clams have no issues with ich. i used a cheapo 250 mh for qt and had no issues. a maxi will do fine in the tank you describe.

 

[MondoBongo]

i was able to keep my crocea in QT under a 4 bulb T5HO fixture, running two 12k daylight bulbs, and two 420nm actinic bulbs.

my QT tank is a 20 long, so it is very shallow to begin with, and i used a ledge to get the clam up as high as possible. it was roughly 2 inches below the surface of the water, and the lights sat on the tank rim, so they were only about 2 inches from the water.

i had him in there for quite some time. a couple months actually, because i was worried about trying to remove him from the rock i had used as his ledge. for some genius reason picked a HUGE chunk of flat rock to let him sit on. d'oh!

i don't keep maxima (yet) but i haven't found my crocea to be particularly difficult to keep. as long as he's acclimated, i haven't been able to give him too much light, he is fairly forgiving about flow, and has otherwise been tolerant of a wide range of my mistakes.

personally i think maximas tend to have nicer colors and patterns than the more common types of crocea that you find, but i got mine because i had been wanting a clam for some time, and he came up at my LFS looking very good.

 

[Silly clownfish]

Thank you both for the encouraging words. I am excited to get my first clam. And it gives me something to look forward to about coming home from vacation!

 

[JRR1285]

Clams are becoming my favorite addition to a reef tank. I added a Derasa clam to start with before getting a Maxima 6 months later. I want to add a Squamosa and a Crocea but I think 4 clams in a 40 breeder is pushing it.

I didn't quarantine either one but it's definitely the way to go if you have the means.

One thing to keep in mind is keeping your calcium and alkalinity in check. Clams suck those up rapidly along with any other stony corals in your tank. I top off with fully saturated kalk in my ATO to maintain adequate numbers.

 

[Silly clownfish]

Thanks JRR? I do top off with kalk and use vinegar to increase the saturation. I check parameters weekly and my alk always stays high. My calcium was dropping slowly until I realized that at 1.025 salinty, reef crystals was only at 400 ppm calicium, so my water changes were the issue. Since then I use a little turbo calcium in my change water to keep it around 450.

I plan to let me my LFS kneo that I will be in the market for a clam in February before I go on vacation so hopefully he will get a shipment in by the time I am back.

No tridacnas in the virgin islands, so that eliminates that temptation!

 

[firemountain]

Clams are becoming my favorite addition to a reef tank. I added a Derasa clam to start with before getting a Maxima 6 months later. I want to add a Squamosa and a Crocea but I think 4 clams in a 40 breeder is pushing it.

I didn't quarantine either one but it's definitely the way to go if you have the means.

One thing to keep in mind is keeping your calcium and alkalinity in check. Clams suck those up rapidly along with any other stony corals in your tank. I top off with fully saturated kalk in my ATO to maintain adequate numbers.

In regards to quarantining, if the clam is the only thing in my 30g tank, do you think I can get away with doing just weekly water changes with Reef Crystals. I plan to quarantine for a few weeks to make sure there are no hitchhiker snails and that the clam is healthy.

I will be speaking with the guys from Pacific east aquaculture tomorrow as a follow up to my lighting schedule, so I am gonna pick their brains as well.

 

[moliken]

In regards to quarantining, if the clam is the only thing in my 30g tank, do you think I can get away with doing just weekly water changes with Reef Crystals. YES
I plan to quarantine for a few weeks to make sure there are no hitchhiker snails and that the clam is healthy.

I will be speaking with the guys from Pacific east aquaculture tomorrow as a follow up to my lighting schedule, so I am gonna pick their brains as well.

 

[firemountain]

Spoke to Kyle this morning from Pacific East Coast about my lighting. He indicated that my two Kessil 360we Lights would be fine for the lighting demands of a Maxima. I currently run them on a 10 hr. Photoperiod, with the max at like 40% color, 60% intensity, for like 2 hours. The rest of the time it's a ramp up/down. It's mainly for my GARF Bonsai.

I told him that I run those numbers, based off of a recommendation by a fellow RC member who also has a GARF Bonsai. The Garfs apparently don't fair as well with the higher whites on the Kessils for some reason. Kyle saw no problems with what I currently run, and just indicated to try and keep the clam higher in the tank and not on the sand bed.

In regards to my QT, I was going to run the Fluval full spectrum LED strip, with a Sunblaster T5HO sunlamp. Kyle indicated that in the short term no more than 2 weeks, it would probably be ok but anything longer, would not be good and the clam would be stressed.

So....I am contemplating buying the new Kessil 160wE. He had no personal experience with it, since it's so new, but he said that for quarantining, that light would be completely fine, based on the reviews and the specs.

He also indicated that in quarantine, esp. if it's quarantined w/o any other Ca and Alk demanding SPS, running just Reef Crystals would be fine.