flame scallop hanging open by foot half up glass hours after lights out

WheatToast · Nov 13, 2022

Fish Think Pink said:
Scallops are filter feeders, diet is no different than clam's diet. I culture and feed pods, so I'm sure it catches and eats those just like everything else in my tanks. I also LOVE that red Piscine Energetics calanus (which is just another type of pods lol). I also shave PE mysis, LRS and other foods and when I find frozen rotifers at my LFS I bring those home for my small fish and scallop.

NPS bivalves like these primarily feed on minuscule 2-20 micrometer particles, so your scallop is probably not directly benefiting from these foods (from a quick search, it looks like the smallest rotifers are around 50 micrometers large while copepod nauplii (babies) are around 100 micrometers large). Have you considered dosing phytoplankton?

Subsea · Nov 13, 2022

I use the microbial loop to move carbon up the food chain and phytoplankton feeds the microbial loop. After reading the first paragraph of this paper, reducing nutrients in a reef tank will happen when dosing live phytoplankton during lights on.

https://www.hatcheryfm.com/documents/22/1325053981_2.pdf

“Phytoplankton consists of one-celled marine and freshwater microalgae and other plant-like organisms. They are used in the production of pharmaceuticals, diet supplements, pigments, and biofuels, and also used as feeds in aquaculture. Phytoplankton are cultured to feed bivalve molluscs (all life stages), the early larval stages of crustaceans, and the zooplankton (e.g., rotifers, cope- pods) that are used as live food in fish hatcheries.
Flagellates and diatoms are two important types of phytoplankton at the base of the food chain. They manu- facture cellular components through the process of pho- tosynthesis, taking up carbon dioxide and nutrients from the water and using light as an energy source.
The microalgae used as feed in hatcheries vary in size, environmental requirements, growth rate, and nutrition- al value (Fig. 1, Tables 1 and 2) (Helm et al., 2004). When selecting a species for culture, it is important to take all
of these parameters into consideration. Most hatcher-
ies grow a variety of species that serve different needs throughout the production cycle with respect to size,
Figure 1. Photomicrographs of two popular species of microalgae commonly cultured in bivalve hatcheries. A) Isochrysis sp. (4–6 μm x 3–5 μm, and B) Tetraselmis sp. (14–20 μm x 8–12 μm) (Helm et al., 2004).
digestibility, culture characteristics, and nutritional value (Muller-Feuga et al., 2003).”

Fish Think Pink · Nov 13, 2022

WheatToast said:
NPS bivalves like these primarily feed on minuscule 2-20 micrometer particles, so your scallop is probably not directly benefiting from these foods (from a quick search, it looks like the smallest rotifers are around 50 micrometers large while copepod nauplii (babies) are around 100 micrometers large). Have you considered dosing phytoplankton?

Why do you think my scallop looks meatier than when I first got it months ago? Would it inflate with water if it were hungry? I *really* appreciate your above info as my flame scallop (clam!) may have starved over time...

Above I mentioned having given some Phyto Feast, but it isn't something I regularly do. With your info, and info from below thread, I need to start giving it both more Phyto and more awesome @Reef Nutrition Oyster Feast... so I'm thinking my scallop needs to move from my mid-sized FOWLR into my 180 gallon reef system as the corals and all will also benefit from this improved (more regular) feedings.