I know this is one of those questions that I can simply be patient and find out the answer to, but google and message boards like this one have ruined me. I have no stomach for curiosity anymore.
I purchased an ultra blue/turquoise maxima clam from Live Aquaria.
It's not from Divers' Den so I was taking it on faith that it would be some variation of color I would be happy with based on the photos I looked up online and the photo on the LA site.
After drip acclimating him I put him in the sand over a buried frag plug with the lights out. Lights are very high PAR LED. After 3 hours I turned the lights on very low with the intent of slowly creeping them up over the course of the next couple of days, and then moving him up the rocks over the course of the next couple of weeks.
Upon turning on the lights, his coloration is nothing like I expected. I don't see any turquoise. The mantle appears mostly brownish purple with a few dark blue spots near the edge. I know purple is within the wide variation in Maxima coloration, but I wouldn't expect a purple one to be sold as ultra blue/turquoise.
Admittedly it's nowhere near fully open, but it got me wondering. Do clams have a stress response similar to many fish that dramatically affects their coloration for a while after shipping? Could I be seeing excess zooxanthellae? What causes this? Should I expect dramatic color changes as it acclimates to the light or water parameters, is exposed to increasingly more light? as it ages?
I read through the stickies and poked through the posts, but most seem to discuss clams losing color over much longer periods of time, not necessarily the relationship between coloration and shipping/acclimation stress. I even found some posts on other websites that indicate the viewing angle can have a pretty big impact on the color you observe. And obviously light spectrum will play a part (I messed with that a little just to see, but brownish purple is largely brownish purple).
Any experience anyone wants to share would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Chance
I purchased an ultra blue/turquoise maxima clam from Live Aquaria.
It's not from Divers' Den so I was taking it on faith that it would be some variation of color I would be happy with based on the photos I looked up online and the photo on the LA site.
After drip acclimating him I put him in the sand over a buried frag plug with the lights out. Lights are very high PAR LED. After 3 hours I turned the lights on very low with the intent of slowly creeping them up over the course of the next couple of days, and then moving him up the rocks over the course of the next couple of weeks.
Upon turning on the lights, his coloration is nothing like I expected. I don't see any turquoise. The mantle appears mostly brownish purple with a few dark blue spots near the edge. I know purple is within the wide variation in Maxima coloration, but I wouldn't expect a purple one to be sold as ultra blue/turquoise.
Admittedly it's nowhere near fully open, but it got me wondering. Do clams have a stress response similar to many fish that dramatically affects their coloration for a while after shipping? Could I be seeing excess zooxanthellae? What causes this? Should I expect dramatic color changes as it acclimates to the light or water parameters, is exposed to increasingly more light? as it ages?
I read through the stickies and poked through the posts, but most seem to discuss clams losing color over much longer periods of time, not necessarily the relationship between coloration and shipping/acclimation stress. I even found some posts on other websites that indicate the viewing angle can have a pretty big impact on the color you observe. And obviously light spectrum will play a part (I messed with that a little just to see, but brownish purple is largely brownish purple).
Any experience anyone wants to share would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Chance