Maxima clam maybe gaping?

[minus9]

Nice! So the moral of the story for our young Padawan is..."Buy or rent a par meter and crank up your light!"

And don’t be afraid of feeding your fish a few times a day, nutrients aren’t the enemy, but poor husbandry is.

 

[eleongsit]

Thank you everyone for the wealth of information.

I wanted to give a quick update on my parameters:

ALk: 9.8
Salinity 1.026
Nitrate:10 ppm
Phosphate: 0.12ppm post daily dose, .03ppm pre dose

My nitrate has held steady with feeding alone for the last few days so I will continue the course and monitor. Phosphate today was the first time I had detectable rates 24hrs after dosing.

I will look into upgrading lighting or staying the course and upgrading to larger tank. If viable I may upgrade the lighting to a more powerful model that I can transfer to my new tank should that happen.

As for the bulky damsel I will likely wait until after my upcoming trip in early April before moving him/ getting additional fish.

 

[DSC reef]

The reason why I push back against the advice of needing to feed clams so much, is it sends or gives new hobbyists the wrong idea of their care requirements and creates this false belief that feeding them is more important or necessary than the light and water conditions in which they actually require to thrive. Proper lighting is more important to clams of all sizes and age than what goes into the system/tank. One simply needs to feed their fish enough to produce urea/waste in order to provide enough nitrogen and phosphorus to uptake. Having measurable nutrients should be enough in most cases. Adding phyto should be seen as “feeding” the whole system/tank and adding to the benthic succession process.
I will admit that I’m pretty passionate when it comes to clams and sometimes I come off as being harsh or crass, but I’m simply trying to help others understand their care and needs, because they are such unique animals that can be kept by most with a little effort (and reading). Cheers!

Agreed, I have many years of growing tridacna and feeding them is 100% not necessary

 

[Tcook]

Thank you everyone for the wealth of information.

I wanted to give a quick update on my parameters:

ALk: 9.8
Salinity 1.026
Nitrate:10 ppm
Phosphate: 0.12ppm post daily dose, .03ppm pre dose

My nitrate has held steady with feeding alone for the last few days so I will continue the course and monitor. Phosphate today was the first time I had detectable rates 24hrs after dosing.

I will look into upgrading lighting or staying the course and upgrading to larger tank. If viable I may upgrade the lighting to a more powerful model that I can transfer to my new tank should that happen.

As for the bulky damsel I will likely wait until after my upcoming trip in early April before moving him/ getting additional fish.

Good numbers and plan.

 

[eleongsit]

I just wanted to give a quick update. Since I have upped my feeding and dosing of Phosphates the my clams mouth has thankfully gone back to a normal size.

I'm continuing with increasing my lighting intensity with the only real negative effect observed so far is that the zoas around the clam get mad with this change but I'm not too worried about them they are taking over my tank... I am assuming they will change colors probably for the worse as the lighting increases intensity.

 

[Tcook]

Good news. With the clam you don’t have to slowly ramp the light. Just for the surrounding corals, especially LPS, that can’t adjust that quickly.