How's my clam look?

[SFREEF3R]

Finally bit the bullet and got a Crocea. How's it look? Have it positioned about half way up in my rock work at ~350 PAR. Would love it a little brighter but my XR30 is maxed out and it's about as high as I can get it. Had it now for a little over a month.

From what I've read, it looks to be doing ok - open but not too open, not gaping, quickly closes in response to shadowing, and it appears to be putting on a bit of growth. I scrubbed the heck out of the exterior when received it for fear of introducing pests and damaged its scutes, which I think it makes it pretty clear where new growth is coming in. My Alk consumption has been climbing fast, but hard to say if it's because of the clam or all my SPS.

For some reason when I take a picture from the side my camera (phone) really distorts/flattens the color. It looks like a deep blue/purple in person from the side. From above it's more teal. Curious to know what folks think of the color - would you consider this "Ultra grade"? It wasn't WYSIWYG, but I had expected perhaps multicolor under this designation. Not totally dissatisfied with the blue/teal coloration, but just curious if this aligns with others' expectations.

 

[Macbalacano]

Nice clam with nice new growth!

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

@Miami Reef

 

[hart24601]

It looks great. You’re lucky it has new white growth and good extension. So many clam issues come from getting unhealthy stock.

As for color it has been my experience that the ultra grades are more solid blue and the lower grades are multicolor, although exceptions occur. Clam grades are not like coral where multicolor or “rainbow” are the high grades. Of course it’s all vendor dependent and subjective.

 

[hart24601]

Photos from algae barn on ORA grading. These are maxima which tend to have more color variation ime but you get the idea.

 

[Miami Reef]

It looks healthy and very beautiful.

 

[SFREEF3R]

I have an association with Maximas in particular being blue on the upper end (correct or not I’m not sure). This is the stock image on the Algaebarn web site where I bought it (of course not WYSIWYG so wouldn’t expect it to be exactly the same). That being I said I have seen multicolor ORA crocea listed as ultra on Divers Den in the past (most were blue + Orange).

Again - it’s a beautiful clam, just wondering what others’ thoughts/experiences were with the grading.

Photos from algae barn on ORA grading. These are maxima which tend to have more color variation ime but you get the idea.

 

[tzabor10]

Love that clam!

Finally bit the bullet and got a Crocea. How's it look? Have it positioned about half way up in my rock work at ~350 PAR. Would love it a little brighter but my XR30 is maxed out and it's about as high as I can get it. Had it now for a little over a month.

From what I've read, it looks to be doing ok - open but not too open, not gaping, quickly closes in response to shadowing, and it appears to be putting on a bit of growth. I scrubbed the heck out of the exterior when received it for fear of introducing pests and damaged its scutes, which I think it makes it pretty clear where new growth is coming in. My Alk consumption has been climbing fast, but hard to say if it's because of the clam or all my SPS.

For some reason when I take a picture from the side my camera (phone) really distorts/flattens the color. It looks like a deep blue/purple in person from the side. From above it's more teal. Curious to know what folks think of the color - would you consider this "Ultra grade"? It wasn't WYSIWYG, but I had expected perhaps multicolor under this designation. Not totally dissatisfied with the blue/teal coloration, but just curious if this aligns with others' expectations.

Love this clam. Looks great. Be sure to manually adjust your photos. My iPhone doesn’t always give the best corrections and the look over saturated.

 

[SFREEF3R]

Love that clam!

Love this clam. Looks great. Be sure to manually adjust your photos. My iPhone doesn’t always give the best corrections and the look over saturated.

Thanks! Yours looks great as well!

Yeah - I’ll often adjust the tint / contrast (sometimes dial baxk or increase a hair) to get the pictures to match my eye. In general with corals I usually find I need to really crank up the yellow/full spectrum or the pictures look way too blue, though if it’s at the end of the day when my lighting schedule nears full spectrum it can be ok. But my phone does some kind of autocorrection that really screws with the color when I take a pic of the clam from the side, even with correction I couldn’t make it look like my eye. May need to experiment a bit more.

 

[hart24601]

That’s one problem with non-wysiwwg is the grades vary so much but I still consider yours an ultra and those others with more brown as not quite as high grade. I had a clam system with 70 clams at one point so have ordered many clams from ora, pacific east, bioata, and others.

I personally like mid grade multicolor more than all blue, but it is what it is, most people like the blue clams hence the grading.

Honestly I think even for corals terms like ultra grade is nonsense.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Finally bit the bullet and got a Crocea. How's it look? Have it positioned about half way up in my rock work at ~350 PAR. Would love it a little brighter but my XR30 is maxed out and it's about as high as I can get it. Had it now for a little over a month.

From what I've read, it looks to be doing ok - open but not too open, not gaping, quickly closes in response to shadowing, and it appears to be putting on a bit of growth. I scrubbed the heck out of the exterior when received it for fear of introducing pests and damaged its scutes, which I think it makes it pretty clear where new growth is coming in. My Alk consumption has been climbing fast, but hard to say if it's because of the clam or all my SPS.

For some reason when I take a picture from the side my camera (phone) really distorts/flattens the color. It looks like a deep blue/purple in person from the side. From above it's more teal. Curious to know what folks think of the color - would you consider this "Ultra grade"? It wasn't WYSIWYG, but I had expected perhaps multicolor under this designation. Not totally dissatisfied with the blue/teal coloration, but just curious if this aligns with others' expectations.

Nice looking clams!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Finally bit the bullet and got a Crocea. How's it look? Have it positioned about half way up in my rock work at ~350 PAR. Would love it a little brighter but my XR30 is maxed out and it's about as high as I can get it. Had it now for a little over a month.

From what I've read, it looks to be doing ok - open but not too open, not gaping, quickly closes in response to shadowing, and it appears to be putting on a bit of growth. I scrubbed the heck out of the exterior when received it for fear of introducing pests and damaged its scutes, which I think it makes it pretty clear where new growth is coming in. My Alk consumption has been climbing fast, but hard to say if it's because of the clam or all my SPS.

For some reason when I take a picture from the side my camera (phone) really distorts/flattens the color. It looks like a deep blue/purple in person from the side. From above it's more teal. Curious to know what folks think of the color - would you consider this "Ultra grade"? It wasn't WYSIWYG, but I had expected perhaps multicolor under this designation. Not totally dissatisfied with the blue/teal coloration, but just curious if this aligns with others' expectations.

Looks great. Take note of your parameters as current numbers seem to keep this clam in an ideal state of health. If something should change, you can refer back to those numbers.

 

[SFREEF3R]

So my clam gave me a bit of a scare.

I very briefly took the rock the clam was mounted to out of the water to attach some corals as it was looking very bare. It was looking just fine initially but later in the evening I found the clam in the sand bed and what looked like a shredded byssal thread on the rock where it was before. I was panicked thinking it had been torn from the clam. I didn't think I had even touched it while handling the rock, though I questioned if I had bumped it without realizing. My urchin who can be a bulldozer was nearby and I also feared it could have pushed the clam off the rock.

I was pretty worried that it had been damaged and put it back on top of the rock just to observe. To my surprise it had reattached to the rock in a matter of hours.

So far it seems to be doing ok.

I had read about clams letting go if they don't like where they are positioned. Perhaps it was aggravated by the trip out of the water? Or maybe it didn't love its spot? I let it attach to the rock in my acclimation box before positioning the rock on the rest of the rock work, so I wonder if it hadn't love the spot to begin with.

I will continue to observe.

 

[SFREEF3R]

Up close image of the torn byssal thread:

 

[musel101]

That’s a sweet looking clam

 

[SFREEF3R]

That’s a sweet looking clam

Thanks! I hope he handles the trauma ok.

 

[SFREEF3R]

Here are some photos more up close (not the clearest as I have to take the picture a bit off angle. I did however figure out that if I turn off all the blues the color looks more representative to what I see with my own eyes from the side):

No Blues:

With full spectrum:

Where it ended up latching onto the rock is sort of hanging off of the edge you can see a little underneath of it. It doesn't look to be any sort of a gaping hole, though I'm a little concerned it isn't protected in case any small invert comes along and wants to nibble

 

[musel101]