Squamosa still moving. :(

[brettandlyndi]

Hi all,

Well, I've had my beautiful 3-4 inch squamosa for almost 3 weeks now, and he is still "jumping off the ledge" of the bowl rock that I have him in. It is only in the middle of the night that he jumps and ends up on the bottom of the tank, and when I find him the next morning, he is fully extended and looking happy. I then pick him up and place him back up towards the top of the tank on the rock I designated for him, and he opens up fully and looks great all through the day. Then the next morning, same thing happens. Does this indicate he is unhappy up towards the top of the tank. I have no problems placing him on the bottom of the tank, in the sand, but I wanted to provide him with as much light as possible, since I'm using PCs. I do have 452 watts of PCs over this 55g tank, so it is alot of PCs, but I still wanted to make sure he stays healthy and was weary of placing him in the sand at first. Please help me. I've included some pictures so that you can see where he is now.

Here he is just a minute or two after being placed back up on his rock, nice and happy looking.

Here is another angle

I've tried tipping this rock back to kind of make it sloped so that it would be harder for him to jump off the ledge, but he still manages to do it. Should I barricade him in, by placing some rocks around the edge?

 

[kfisc]

They move incessantly at first, ime- I'd place it on the bottom and let it be. Your lighting may be enough, in that the risk of letting it go on the bottom will be a lot less than the stress of constantly moving it and falling down the rocks. Nice tank, by the way- good luck-

 

[joeychitwood]

I've found that I have to move my clams around the tank to different rocks until I find the spot where they seem happy and quit jumping off. Once you find the spot where the clam sets down threads, leave it there. Occasionally they will move after several months in one spot.

 

[Jeremy Blaze]

Looks like he is right in the path of that seio. I'd move the clam or the powerhead, you do not want to blast clams with flow.

 

[jay24k]

I've found squamosas really prefer the sand. Once they get large, you won't want them in the rock anyway.

 

[reverendmaynard]

You could move that rock down to the sand so he doesn't have far to fall if he moves. After a few weeks he'll likely be prettyy firmly attached and unlikely to move from that rock if you move the rock up higher (provided the flow or light are not wrong and making him uncomfortable in the new spot).

What kind of lighting do you have? Squamosas have the lowest light requirements of the tridacnids that people keep, often found at depths of 60' in the wild. They should be fine on the bottom of a tank that is decently lit.

 

[Jeremy Blaze]

I still think the seio has something to do with it.

 

[reverendmaynard]

Wow, I just noticed how close it is. It might even be touching the rock, vibrating it, which might upset the clam. Also, even if the output flow is not directly blowing on the clam, the flow towards the pump to the intake might be too strong.

 

[joeychitwood]

My clams seem "happiest" when their mantles are just gently swaying in the current.