Clam Dominant Cube

[bsagea]

Last tank for us! Custom cube which will be clam dominant - will home a handful of corals and a few of my favorite fish. It has been up about 20 months now after the back glass cracked at 4 months.

Will update with a current pic in a few days.

 

[CodyRVA]

Following!

 

[Blade*13]

Following along!

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Last tank for us! Custom cube which will be clam dominant - will home a handful of corals and a few of my favorite fish. It has been up about 20 months now after the back glass cracked at 4 months.

Will update with a current pic in a few days.

Oooo!! I wanna see!!

 

[bsagea]

Aquascaping the second time around...

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Aquascaping the second time around...

Tease!

 

[bsagea]

Pic of the tank today. Inhabitants include (1) clam, a pair of ORA Premium Black Snowflake Clowns, Rhomboidalis Wrasse, Bipartus Leopard Wrasse, Purple Firefish, Two Spot Bristletooth Tang, ORA Kamahora Blenny and a Blue Watchman Goby. Testing the waters (literally) before adding a couple more clams. Hopefully will do so in the very near future!

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Pic of the tank today. Inhabitants include (1) clam, a pair of ORA Premium Black Snowflake Clowns, Rhomboidalis Wrasse, Bipartus Leopard Wrasse, Purple Firefish, Two Spot Bristletooth Tang, ORA Kamahora Blenny and a Blue Watchman Goby. Testing the waters (literally) before adding a couple more clams. Hopefully will do so in the very near future!

Cool! Looking forward to seeing the new additions!

 

[bsagea]

New addition to the clam tank! 3" Blue Squamosa

 

[ReefQueen]

That stand is gorgeous!

 

[bsagea]

That stand is gorgeous!

Thank you!!! Our local cabinet maker built it for us. I had combined several details from other stands that I had seen and he did a great job! I am not the easiest person to make something for I am sorry to say but he hit it out of the park for us. The tank is eurobraced and he did a custom slide on top to hide the eurobracing. Thanks again for the compliment.
bsa

 

[Caesar_corals]

any updates?

 

[bsagea]

any updates?

Unfortunately not really! I currently only have a blue squamosa...I had several maxima's who were doing well when I purchased a few others. A week or two later they were all gone I'm sorry to say. I've gone through that a couple times over the past couple years! I have a good amount of corals in there now which would have to go before I could get some clams. Sad and scary thing is that you just never know when you get clams if they have something that could spread to the others. Everyone recommends QT'ing a clam, but I don't believe my set up will sustain one for any length of time. They need a great deal of light. If they're not receiving enough, they can start to die. It could take months for a clam to die from lack of light!
bsa

 

[bsagea]

Finally able to update some about my clam dominant cube...sold alot of the corals out of my cube and finally have this back to a "clam dominant" tank as it was intended to be! Though there are a good amount of corals still left in there, I have re~aquascaped it to house the clams. I have been purchasing those that are 5"or so lately. I've not had a great deal of luck with the smaller ones, so there will be less but hopefully they will all thrive. My longest is my blue squamosa at 3 1/2 years and a beautiful aquamarine that almost 7" now. The rest of them have been a couple months to a couple days! New rock that was cycling in a trash barrel was used to the aquascape and now have that lovely brown diatoms on them! Doesn't seem to bother the clams though. Thankfully, none of my fish have bothered the clams so far except to pick food off of them now and then. Hoping to add to them in a month or so...pics will be coming!
bsa

 

[Wasabiroot]

I would recommend a QT or holding tank for any clam additions so that you can monitor for a few weeks to a few months. I love your idea as I think clams can't get enough love, but any disease being brought in from wild or infected risks wiping out your entire tank. I really am looking forward to this revamped build. I love clams!

Idk if you have it or not but I highly recommend James Fatheree's comprehensive book on clam husbandry :)

Amazon product ASIN 0978619455

 

[Smite]

This is an awesome idea. Following along and would love to see a FTS once your diatom stage passes.

 

[bsagea]

I would recommend a QT or holding tank for any clam additions so that you can monitor for a few weeks to a few months. I love your idea as I think clams can't get enough love, but any disease being brought in from wild or infected risks wiping out your entire tank. I really am looking forward to this revamped build. I love clams!

Idk if you have it or not but I highly recommend James Fatheree's comprehensive book on clam husbandry :)

Amazon product ASIN 0978619455

I have that book as well as Giant Clams by Daniel Knop. I have been keeping clams for about 8 or 9 years now. At one time I had (30) of them between our (2) tanks. Nothing new was added ~ clams, coral or fish, but I started to lose them ~ one by one each day. It was so peculiar. Hoping to save a few of them, I transferred a couple to the other tank and lost those as well except for my blue squamosa. No explanation...I called it the clam plague as there was nothing I could attribute it to. As we all know and have experienced, this can be a heartbreaking hobby sometimes. At one time we had a fireworm that took out the baby gigas and green squamosa as well as a couple others at the time. Here's some pics from years ago...
bsa

 

[Wasabiroot]

Awesome- forgive me if I came across as presumptuous. One day I'd love to do a clam in a larger system. Until then I can live vicariously through you, lol

 

[exnisstech]

Nice! I want to add a clam or 2 to my reefer 170 now that I am switching to sps and have plenty of light. Have to wait for my copper band to outgrow the tank first so he stands a chance against the purple tang where he will be moved to.

 

[bsagea]

Awesome- forgive me if I came across as presumptuous. One day I'd love to do a clam in a larger system. Until then I can live vicariously through you, lol

You're fine, no worries!
Clams can thrive in a small system as well as. Lighting is the main thing especially for the maximas. I'm hoping these will all thrive! Fatheree says that a clam dies for a reason. Pinpointing that is another story. What amazes me is that it can take months for a clam to die if it's not receiving the proper light it needs. I still feed phyto to these big guys too as I did to the small ones I kept years ago. Clams filter phytoplankton in the ocean so why not add some to the tank...
bsa