The benefit of feeding clams

spamreefnew said:
Why not shuck them raw and toss them in a blender? Us rhode islanders can shuck pretty fast ya know...
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Just yesterday I got 4 clams and 4 oysters from the local supermarket. I shucked them raw. As a Chicago native it took me twenty minutes. I used the small bowl part of my food processor, pulsed about 15 times and got a very fine and uniform slush. The food processor is by far less messy than a blender. I then used a mini ice cube tray that makes cubes the size of frozen mysis. They were ready this morning, so I popped them out of the tray and into a baggie for storage in the freezer.
 
Ok so I gave it a try But I have to confess I was just to lazy to be sitting there with a razor blade day after day shaving off pieces. So after a couple days of that I started just putting the whole thing in the tank. Oh my god! Talk about a feeding frenzy. Took them a few minutes to catch on the first time. But since then They annihilate it!! I mean the whole thing is picked clean in less than 10 min each time. Thanks for the tip
 
Hey Paul quick question, I just got some live clams, so u telling me, to take it like this, slightly open it and place something like a tooth pick so I can open them better after freezing them, place them in the freezer, when is time to feed the fishes, take one open it completely slice some and feed the fishes, after that I place the left over in the freezer and do the same thing all over? For how long that open one should stay good in the freezer, and what about the ones that haven't been open, for how long should they be good? Hey sorry for the long question lol and thanks

5d017b01a4198020a13539d8a854e2b6.jpg
 
That is correct. The rest of the frozen clams will last for many months. If you can get larger clams it is easier
 
I always use whole fresh oysters for new finicky fish - highly nutritional and gets most of them to feed (I might try the shavings method for fish that mainly feed from the water column in the future).
 
Paul B said:
Ichthyogeek, the tank is 43 years old, if that were the case, it would have crashed many years ago. Copper, and mercury are in all fish and in your water in trace amounts and even with 43 years of accumulation has not yet been a problem. That should tell you something.
And besides, I think metal accumulation in tanks is over rated
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rare hammer coral. nice!
 
Hey FraggledRock, I have that same rare hammer coral. I use it to bust out stubborn clams! Just a tap will do it! :beer:

Shelley
 
Think that's a knock off estwing. Lol fwiw I never liked estwing hammers,just never felt right in my hand,must be because I'm not a carpenter....lol
 
Hi Paul!
What do you do when you go out of town or have to be away from the tank for a while? I guess the mandarins shrimp hatch thingy picks up some of the slack, but not so much for the high swimmers, or do you have an exceptional tank sitter?

I have a trip coming up and hubby is being a wuss about the clams. I've got the fish to go after some flakes by putting clam liquor on them, but they give me dirty looks when they realize they've been swindled.
 
I make some frozen food in small pre measured containers. (film containers) My tank sitter just has to dump one into my frozen food defroster which is a pump hanging on the side of the tank with a container on the outflow. The container has holes in it so when the food defrosts, it disperses it throughout the tank. The tank sitter doesn't have to measure anything, just dump it in. The auto brine hatchery feeds the rest of the pipes and mandarins.
 
Miguelh1302 said:
Hey Paul quick question, I just got some live clams, so u telling me, to take it like this, slightly open it and place something like a tooth pick so I can open them better after freezing them, place them in the freezer, when is time to feed the fishes, take one open it completely slice some and feed the fishes, after that I place the left over in the freezer and do the same thing all over? For how long that open one should stay good in the freezer, and what about the ones that haven't been open, for how long should they be good? Hey sorry for the long question lol and thanks

5d017b01a4198020a13539d8a854e2b6.jpg
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The styrofoam is alive the little necks are, ahem, cold.
 
gdemos said:
The styrofoam is alive the little necks are, ahem, cold.
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Hard to tell from the pic, but it probably doesn't hurt to mention how to shop shellfish, for the land-locked among us. When I get live food I check it the same way as if I were eating it. So whether it's a mussel, oyster, clam (or emu, lol) if its shell is not tightly closed, I give it a whack on the counter, if it doesn't pull tightly shut in a few seconds it goes in the trash. I suppose fish could be much hardier about the sorts of things that get up in an old clam, but people get sooo unpleasant if they eat one.

PS there's vids on youtube for how to shuck safely. My hubby put a clam knife through the soft part where your thumb connects to your hand, the ER made him basically have the inside of his hand opened up and rinsed out with saline (though that might be more of a cautionary tale about shucking sober, and not being too stubborn to go to the hospital until you see red lines running up your arm)
 
Paul,I just got some clams to feed to my fish. I opened them and placed them in the freezer. My only question is how do you shave them up? What kind of knife do you use? How often do you stand over your tank shaving the clams and does freezer burn affect them in any way? Because an opened clam sitting in the freezer will develop ice crystals pretty fast ya know. I have decided to try feeding my fish clams for about a month an see if I see a change in them.
 
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