Just bought a 2.5" squamosa clam! Suggestions??

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So does the clam need to be place in the sand bed seeing it is a squamosa and 2-3inches?

Also if so how does the rock underneath work for it to attach to. Should the rock be entirely in the sand? Or can the rock be out of the sand a bit and the clam shell not hitting the sand? Basically wondering if the bottom of the shell needs to be touching sand bed or not.
 
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Is this a tear in the mantle? Hoping some reefers with experience will chime in here.
 

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ca1ore

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Is this a tear in the mantle? Hoping some reefers with experience will chime in here.
No. Clams actively pump water through their body. That ‘tear’ is the inhalent. Exhale siphon on the other end. FWIW, I’ve found the Squamosa to be among the faster growing clams. Mine went from 4” to over a foot in 5 years before inexplicably dying.
 
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No. Clams actively pump water through their body. That ‘tear’ is the inhalent. Exhale siphon on the other end. FWIW, I’ve found the Squamosa to be among the faster growing clams. Mine went from 4” to over a foot in 5 years before inexplicably dying.
Thank you for chiming in ca1ore! This is my first clam so this is still a learning experience for me. A lot of the online posts really freaked me out when I looked up about the torn mantle (everyone saying hole in mantle). Glad this is a normal inhalant siphon.

Seeing this is my first clam I wanted to pick the easiest one and thought from all the articles and forums I read through plus asking around that the Squamosa was my best bet. I am hoping that I can successfully keep it for lets say 2-4 years and than once it gets to large for my tank sell it or give it away to another fellow reefer. Or possibly upgrade :)
 
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It moved more toward the front of the tank today! Hope that’s a good thing. Either way I get to see it a little more now :)
 

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OrionN

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Squamosa do not attach (very weak attachment when they are small) to rock so you need to place them on a very stable surface that doe snot result them tumbling over to the side. They do not require very high light, but do better with high light. The most logical place for them is on the sand or in a rather large container fill with sand.
Here is mine Squamosa in a container fill with sand. Light is about 500 PAR daylight flood LED light from Home Depo. You can see the reflection of the light in this picture. I am not a fan of blue light so just white/full spectrum light for me. It is growing a lot since go into my tank. You can see the growing white shell in this picture.
Around this Squamosa are three Crocea. All are doing very well. As long as the light is strong enough, all my clams, regardless of species, go on the sand. All Clam species can tolerate very bright light. The bright light, include Gigas (see in second picture) really bring out the color on the mantle. One of my two Gigas was attacked by one of my Gigantea anemones. He still have spots on the mantle from this attack, and is healing, doing well.
1c752f10-104f-43f7-8f73-f8542fa5227e-jpeg.1984542

272de016-25a1-4b0a-aee5-801cab1055e6-jpeg.1982351
 
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Hello Orion! Glad to have a very experienced reefer chiming in. Your clams look beautiful.

So many people have told me to have the squamosa in the sand bed but to also have a rock underneath. I was a little confused so my best idea was to bury a few rocks underneath the sand to provide a barrier between the clam and the glass. Also it helps retain some structure in the sand for the clam to stay put. It has been 4 days now and the clam is looking great! The gaping stopped after the first night like others said it should. It seems to have moved a bit move towards the light. How do you think it looks?

I am running AI Prime 16 HD and asked in the Facebook group if others had clams in their sand bed with many others doing so successfully. If the clam is not getting enough light on the bottom of my tank, it will start to show signs of gaping - correct? And if it does I should move it up higher in the rocks?
 

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Here’s my sqawmy, it’s 5 years old now and 7”.
He likes the sand, but hates to be moved.
Easy clam, I feed him nothing, ever, just the nutrients he pulls from the water and maybe 100 PAR.
I run elevated parameters, Alk 11.5dkh, CA 465ppm, MG 1410ppm and a stable 8.3ph.
My nitrates are a solid 10ppm and phosphate is 0.07ppm.
To me, he’s big enough to manage on his own, but again, once placed, just let him sit.
He can “move” by pumping, but in my case, he just seems to turn himself on a different angle than placed by me. I tried turning him back and in one day, he put himself back.

You have a nice specimen there. Enjoy.
4FE48F63-98E3-42FC-8D25-37412FAC0C09.jpeg
 
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Thank you very much! Your tank and clam look stunning. Is that a blue squamosa? Looks rather similar to mine. Wow that makes me feel really good you are at 100 PAR and it is doing fine. That was my biggest worry. The clam did exactly what yours did. Shifted outwards more. Just going to let it be and I like the placement it picked anyway. More visible!
 
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Here is a photo of the new spot it has moved to (not very far). Yesterday it dropped its byssal threads which from what I’m looking up is normal at this point of introduction and movement. Each day a new worrying surprise that ends up being okay people need to find this info out before getting a clam. In my defense I did a lot of prior research - guess not enough.

As the mantle extends out more I’m really getting an idea of the coloration. Lots of blues in the tank and with white lights gold
 

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hart24601

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Looks happy! Glad it came in nice shape. FWIW I am the opposite of OrionN, I have every common species of clam on bare bottom, not sand, so once you get some experience with them it doesn't matter a great deal. I do keep small clams on sand in container for a while to get size and make sure no pyramid snails as I put clean sand in daily for a while when getting a new clam.
 
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Looks happy! Glad it came in nice shape. FWIW I am the opposite of OrionN, I have every common species of clam on bare bottom, not sand, so once you get some experience with them it doesn't matter a great deal. I do keep small clams on sand in container for a while to get size and make sure no pyramid snails as I put clean sand in daily for a while when getting a new clam.
Thank you so much and happy to have you chime in. Oh glad to know they can be in diverse conditions! Are they attached to the glass or you have something under them? I think my clam moved away from the rocks I had under the sand but luckily my sand bed is about 3 inches.
 

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One squammy has never really attached to anything, the other attached to plastic bottom but nice thing with plastic is they can be slid off easily.
 
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One squammy has never really attached to anything, the other attached to plastic bottom but nice thing with plastic is they can be slid off easily.
How long can the byssal threads go down? It seemed the size of a small cotton ball. Unless this thing can grow 3 inch roots I’m not worrying yet.
 

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I don’t think they go down far. Sometimes they just attach to sand as well, I don’t think they know long as they are happy.
 

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The squamosa just came in! At first I was nervous because it was all white and closed up (new to clams) but after being in the tank a few minutes it’s opening up a bit :) how does it look to everyone??
I had my croceas squirt water all over my face and shirt. Cheeky bugger. It was during the transfer from the QT and to the DT.
 

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Here is a photo of the new spot it has moved to (not very far). Yesterday it dropped its byssal threads which from what I’m looking up is normal at this point of introduction and movement. Each day a new worrying surprise that ends up being okay people need to find this info out before getting a clam. In my defense I did a lot of prior research - guess not enough.

As the mantle extends out more I’m really getting an idea of the coloration. Lots of blues in the tank and with white lights gold
Nice clam. I am looking into one soon.
 

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