Question for Vendors of Clams

MiNdErAsR

Dark Lord of Sriracha!
Staff member
RC Mod
How do you keep the clam shells clean? Can you describe your methods? Tools used? Hints?

TIA
 
Last edited:
Jim,

All I do is clean with a tooth brush. Sometimes I have to do a little scrapping then I use a knife. Most of the time my tang or my lawnmower blenny do most of my cleaning.

Barry
 
I use a wire brush W/paintscaper from HD for my large Derasa and one of my Squamosa's. No I don't use the scaper part of the brush. All cleaning is done outside the tank.
 
I need to take my clams OUT of the tank I guess and scrape off the accumulations of valonia:(

nanook
 
Not a vendor... But...

I used a Dremel with the brush attachments. They do a wire brush and a softer bristled plasticy brush. IME it is easier than scrubbing with a toothbrush and allows you to clean out algae, valonia, aiptasia, mushrooms and anything else from the schutes.

I suggest you put down some newspaper on the floor as there is quite abit of spray of associated pulped organisms. Also glasses or goggles are a good idea as it sure does sting getting splatted in the eye with pulped aiptasia! Rinse well is my advice if it happens :D
 
I'm guessing that some of these ideas should only be done on larger clams. I can't envision myself safely cleaning off my 1" T. max with a dremel tool :eek: ... that guy is so small I'd hate to pick him up at all, unecessarily...
 
I've done small 1 - 1.5" clams. Obviously make sure they are fully retracted and the shells closed first. On putting them back in the tank they are open in 5 minutes as though nothing happened.
 
This may seem silly but I'm new to clams so I'm gonna ask anyway :) Why do you clean the shells? My largest clam has a bunch of small valonia on it. Is it harvful to the clam?
 
Flame Angel,
I remove clams from my tanks to inspect them. One for snails and then also if algae is on the shell edge near the mantle this can cause a problem so I clean the shell. I started out using a tooth brush but when you do hundreds of clams I found out the dremel worked the best.
Jim
www.tank.net
 
Hmmm, I guess if the valonia bubbles grew larger the clam wouldn't be able to spread its mantle properly? Perhaps I should consider it then.
 
Picked up a small wire brush, and did some major scrubbing. Worked great!

Thanks guys.
 
My clams are out of the water about 15 minutes. Clam farms to induce clams to spawn lay clam out of water for 2 hours. Also alot of small clam farms dry ship clams to export stations.
Jim
www.tanku.net
 
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