Advanced Reefkeeper Turns Clam Muderer

[Steven Nelson]

After 40 years of cleaning salt creep, I have recently begun attempting to keep a small Tridachna in my very healthy mixed, naturalistic reef. Please take my word for params, gear, lighting, etc., in the interest of brevity and relevance.
The bottom line is simply this: don’t target feed clams!
As I’m chronically ill, my significant other does the daily routines with my directions.
Three consecutive specimens have moved in, healthy and beautiful, only to mysteriously croak overnight. The tank’s become a clam boneyard :-(
Generally, the sump grows algea which the fish feed on, and the fish ‘feed’ the corals.
Regular supplements and water changes happen, and the tank supports a lush bioload, with rich macro life.
Given that I have a number of young frags, I’ve asked her to target feed a freeze dried blend, which I mix and keep in quantity.
I’ve preferrred to tread lightly with supplemental feeding, however, my SO is an Earth Mother type who equates food with love. Thus it’s predicatable to everyone but me, that she’ll not only overfeed, but that she’s also been blanketing the clams in a cloud of coral mix. Without knowing that this was the case, I’ve been distressed to then visit my reef only to find another pretty mollusk, croaked.
I accept the vituperation and scorn of my peers, and in no way attempt to shift the blame for my negligence in giving inconcise instruction, and allowing a neophyte to err so grievously.
In truth, we’ve battled a few crisises owing to the delegation of tasks to unqualified hands, but after the first or second incident, I shoulda known bettah.
I will wait awhile to process my grief and shame, before giving one, last go. I’ve been successful with them in the past, but sometimes, for arcane reasons, a species just ceases or refuses to thrive in a given environment. Given the health of the overall system, and from my measures and observations, I think that the causation is that the clams are suffocating when target fed.
While I may sound a little jocular, I do love these animals, and feel a special responsibility for their care and longevity. Reefers have contributed greatly to conservation and restoration, but we can also be eggregious consumers of fragile animals under great pressure.
So it is that I offer again, Please Don’t Feed the Clams!

 

[Flippers4pups]

Sorry for your losses.

 

[Katrina71]

I'm sorry for your loss

 

[DSC reef]

I agree with not target feeding clams. So sorry for the loss

 

[Coralreefer1]

That sucks that you lost your Clam...I have, unfortunately, lost many a Tridacna before and it is always a sad day and a day filled with what if’s? And Why? What did I do wrong?
I never really target fed my Clams as most of their nutrients come from light and throught filter feeding of nitrates. I did however, add some phytoplankton occasionally for the Clams and other corals in my tank.
Sorry to hear about the loss of a truly awesome invert! What species of Tridacna did you have?

 

[Steven Nelson]

The first was a small blue Maxima, and the last two were gold/blue Derasas. RIP :-(

 

[Steven Nelson]

...
I never really target fed my Clams as most of their nutrients come from light and throught filter feeding of nitrates. I did however, add some phytoplankton occasionally for the Clams and other corals in my tank.

It’s been a while since I’ve read many threads here, although I’m hoping to catch up. I know that for a time it seemed that naturalistic systems were becoming anachronistic. It seemed like most reefers wanted zero NO3-; people were buying skimmers the size of grain silos and bare tanks were hot - folks using sterilizer-only systems, etc.. There are a few successful methods and everyone can wrangle over good/better/best.

As a diver now in dry dock, I prefer to keep a habitat closer to the open reef. A solid back wall built on a base of rubble, with scads of sponges and softies mostly low, plating corals from low/mid to high/mid, and acros from high/mid to high. I tend to let them sort themselves out, with occasional assistance and necessary pruning.

I keep 3 large, double-barreled circulators and a fulltime cannister (carbon/ceramic) going in a 6’, 160g main tank for movement, but the guts of the system is a DIY, 3 chambered slow flow sump, with a first stage that flows through a rock/mangrove section, then a dense cheto section, then a rock-only section (three sections in one, large tub, using led growlamps, separated by egg crate). The second stage houses an intentionally undersized skimmer and sensor probes, and the third stage is the return pump chamber packed with polyfilters and phosphate pads.

A mandatory oscelaris family tends the softies, a group of yellow, and several other assorted tangs feed on shredded cheto from the sump and tank-pickings. Lots of assorted smalls (micro wrasses, dwarf angels, clown gobies, bichromis, small damsels, etc) help groom the rock. A large and diverse cleanup crew and macroculture deal with detrius - dozens of small hermies and snails, urchins, a healthy crew of bristles and microbrittles... A damnable engineer goby, a couple watchman gobies, tiger shrimp, & nasarius snails turn the sandbed. A small ‘cloud’ of turquoise chromis provide color, but also encourage more shy fish to socialize and feed (s’truth!), and a matted filefish eats opportunistic anemonids. The tank gets a broadcast feeding of a generic flake food soaked in Vitachem am & pm, with pumps and filtration on as usual. I use far less Vitachem than the bottle directions. The sump provides a rich and ongoing supply of both phyto and zooplankton. A fat copperband and mandarin keep macros in check. It’s a very busy, interdependent community, including one big mudskipper (me). It flourishes. I, unfortunately, dont.

I auto dose Randy’s Recipe (CaCl2, bicarb, MgSo4) conservatively but daily, strontium, iron and manganese weekly, and change out 35 gal monthly, or prn. I run 2 dual Kessils at 15” over an uncovered surface, programmed to aproximate an equatorial solar/lunar cycle. I continuously ventilate the cabinet & sump system to clear cO2 and waste heat, run small phosban and carbon reactors, and have a 9 stage R/O system for mixing salt & top off.

I test a few times weekly with 14x dip strips, and a full range of reagent tests at least monthly. I continuously monitor temp,
salinity and pH electronically, with floating hydrometers in the reserve tank and sump - all checked periodically against a refractometer.
I’d rather have a param running a little high or low for a while than have them bouncing all over. Consistency and balance are my goals. Right now my DKh is on the high side, but I have little precip, and testing shows everything else to be ideal. If my pH trends down, I’d prefer to feed less, bump lighting, freshen carbon or add rock until I trend upward, as opposed to doing big WCs and pouring in buffers.

I’ve been at it for a long time - tried many approaches and failed miserably along the way. When I started, our understanding wasn’t much beyond incandescent lighting and UG filters. In some respects, I’ve come back to old school, biology over technology, although it may be better to consider each as having equal importance in different domains.
Given that I’ve been out of the loop for a while, I’m interested in what other’s takes are on these things (which is actually the point of the forum, huh?)

(At some point I’ll post pics - I’d like to have a few newer things grow out a bit, and maybe have a living clam before I show off much )

 

[reefwiser]

You will have great success with Clam's 6 to 8 inches in size the small ones are not great for people that really want a clam.