New-ish to reefing, just got Maxima

[RyanTheSquid]

Does this Maxima clam i just got look healthy? It's 2.5" in the top of my 24gal Auquatop. It's been in my tank for 48 hours or so now. Just worried about the light it may or may not be getting.

 

[dansyr]

I don't really see any LPS you have that will be too sad with PAR around 180-200ish. I had my non-designer torch under ~200-220 and it was happy. Same for Favia-types, mostly around 150-200 in mine and I've seen them higher in others. Your rock structure is good I think because they can be placed more shaded if need be, I think you're set up for both clam and LPS if you want to boost the light to make the clam happy. Also for what it's worth, LPS is a super broad categorization so you will see super broad categorizations that aren't always too useful, when you think 'low light tolerant' more than 'low light obligate'. Or "low light" relative to >400PAR acros but higher than a 75-max meat coral (or one of the other few low-light specialists in the hobby that i'm aware of).

Not a LPS guy so take this with a grain of salt, but just reporting I've had LPS very close to where I've had happy growing clams.

 

[RyanTheSquid]

Don't fall into the trap that lps and soft corals don't like high light. Most corals will easily acclimate to a higher par. I have clams and sps and lps all mixed together.

Your corals will be fine under an AI Prime at max power.

Good to know, just worried because in my other thread I raised my intensity by 10% or so and my new torch nearly fully retracted into the skeleton, lowered it back down and now it's happy again. I'd rather sell the clam to my LFS and not have to worry about bleaching my other corals. I may try a narrow beam light like suggested above though.

 

[RyanTheSquid]

I don't really see any LPS you have that will be too sad with PAR around 180-200ish. I had my non-designer torch under ~200-220 and it was happy. Same for Favia-types, mostly around 150-200 in mine and I've seen them higher in others. Your rock structure is good I think because they can be placed more shaded if need be, I think you're set up for both clam and LPS if you want to boost the light to make the clam happy. Also for what it's worth, LPS is a super broad categorization so you will see super broad categorizations that aren't always too useful, when you think 'low light tolerant' more than 'low light obligate'. Or "low light" relative to >400PAR acros but higher than a 75-max meat coral (or one of the other few low-light specialists in the hobby that i'm aware of).

Not a LPS guy so take this with a grain of salt, but just reporting I've had LPS very close to where I've had happy growing clams.

I see. I've been seeing so many mixed things, I've seen that the clam will die and never be happy without a par over 300, though I'm being told my maxima looks happy right now as it is with my lights as low as they are. So I don't know if that just means it was very health from Corals.com and it'll slowly receed or what.

 

[dansyr]

I see. I've been seeing so many mixed things, I've seen that the clam will die and never be happy without a par over 300, though I'm being told my maxima looks happy right now as it is with my lights as low as they are. So I don't know if that just means it was very health from Corals.com and it'll slowly receed or what.

Yeah if you're not confident you can meet the needs of the maxima and are more comfortable with that, trading it in is definitely the thing to do responsibly, so good on you for that. We're all enablers here, so ready to offer ways to change things to keep the clam, but LFS is an equally good option.

I don't know about Corals.com facility, but i would assume most clams are severely underlit during wholesaler-retailer parts of the chain, excepting the few very clam-oriented vendors. I've gotten my 6 clams from 3 local-ish places and all were underlit. So you're spot on that the features people noticed (extension, mantle saturation etc) mean immediate, relative happiness - your acclimation & tank quality and it appreciating escaping the dark box. But takes a little more time to know if it is continuously happy (monitor growth band, etc).

 

[minus9]

Lots of good advice here, increasing the lighting and leaning towards a "daylight" spectrum is definitely a good plan. Your parameters are pretty good overall, so as long as you keep them stable you should be fine. I would lean towards AFR as your major ion source and do weekly 10-20% water changes with a quality salt and that should be all you'll need. One thing I would get ahead of soon is the all of the algae on the top portion of the scape. Manual removal and the proper CUC will help, but if you increase lighting and don't mitigate that algae, it will become a problem quickly. As far as lighting the clam, monitor the shell growth, if you're not seeing constant new growth on the upper margins of the shell, then you need more light.
Clams are individuals, so each clam will have its own unique requirements for light. But I would follow the general guidelines for each species as a starting point. If you're not sure and want to learn more, then I would buy James Fatherree's book on clams here.