Let’s talk about big mussels: Are you ready for giant clams in your tank?

Are you ready for giant clams in your tank?

  • I currently keep a giant clam in my aquarium

    Votes: 47 20.3%
  • I have kept giant clams in the past, but don’t have any now

    Votes: 37 16.0%
  • I am interested, but I haven’t kept giant clams yet

    Votes: 97 42.0%
  • I have no plans to keep giant clams

    Votes: 50 21.6%

  • Total voters
    231

BaghdadBean

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I'm sure they were also glad that you respected their privacy.

On a serious note it's basically an organics overload in the system right? Would a coral spawning event in a tank crash it?

I think a lot depends on the size of your tank and overall conditions. I had pocillopora and fungia spawn in my tank and didn’t hardly notice any change in parameters, but I never had ALL the corals in my tank spawn at once. Here’s a photo of a successful fungia baby from that spawn event, the only one I found. It started as just some weird little blob on the rock, I didn’t even notice it had developed into a fungia until I was taking photos of my spotted mandarin. It eventually got too big for its holdfast spot and fell down, so got moved to the sandbed. Irrelevant except to show that coral can spawn in your system if it’s mature enough and not cause issues.


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Clam spawns are a bit more intense. Having two Crocea and two Deresa spawn at once in a 58 gallon display system during a power outage was no bueno. I had been swapping systems on and off the generator (multiple aquariums and my fridge taking turns) and I think that on-off was part of what contributed to the clams spawning. They went through some temperature and light changes in a cyclic sort of way that made them think they were about to die, and then bam, self fulfilling prophecy after spawning because it happened during an off moment. Maybe if the skimmer had been running the whole time it wouldn’t have shifted to ammonia, but by the time I saw what was happening and swapped the tank back on to the genny it had already spiked ammonia. Interestingly, I didn’t lose any of the poci colonies, just all my fish, shrimps, clean up crew, and clams. I lost all my aquacultured acros but the Marshall Islands one survived, and my montipora cap types survived, but the encrusting ones didn’t. The non photosynthetic corals all survived, the least colorful and funkiest looking sponges had a boom, but I lost most of my feather duster worms, and a crinoid that I had kept alive for over a year. Definitely one of those moments where you really weigh the direction you’re going in and try to decide whether to scrap it or start over.

Lessons learned: don’t cheap out on your generator. Get one appropriately sized to match what you have to have running, because I genuinely think taking the systems on and off again was part of what did the damage. Back then we didn‘t have all the options for DC pumps or LED lighting, so tanks today can draw a lot less than in the early 00’s. My other three aquariums came through just fine, but they didn’t have clams in them. I really wish I had moved the clams to the 135 gallon display when I got it through cycling because I don’t think the impact would have been as bad in a bigger display. Instead I procrastinated because the bigger display had a bunch of huge softy and LPS in it, while my smaller tank was my SPS display with better lighting. I probably could have moved the clams to the bigger tank temporarily during the outages, but I didn’t consider it because I was hung up on “keep your hands out of your aquarium”. A case of not seeing the forest for the trees.
 

Troy V

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From my experience after they reach a certain size the clam goes from being a beautiful majestic 150 lb filtering machine to within minutes turning your crystal clear reef into a translucent organic soup. You realize this when the Gigas matures and you get consecutive mass spawning events where the spawn lasts for a week-every 10-12 minutes from 4pm to 7:30ish each day several times a year. Even a healthy 550 gallon system was slave to it's needs. I had this clam for 14 years and I was sad when it died from shell separation. But the last few years it was absolutely ridiculous how often it would spawn.
 

lostly22

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All shrimp will attack your clams. Also watch out for blennies. I got a star blenny in with mine, so far it is ok but depends on fish personality. The cure for your Aptasia has to be Joe's Juice by hand.
Not true, I currently keep a pistol shrimp in my clam tank, ~6 months in, and kept a skunk cleaner shrimp along side it for several months before i moved it for stealing coral food. 4 crocea clams in a 10 gallon too so it’s not as if they didn’t notice them
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 64 37.0%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 59 34.1%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 24 13.9%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 26 15.0%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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