T. maxima spawning!

returnofsid · Aug 2, 2011

As some of you may know, Angie's Nano has become a Bubble Algae garden! Today, I got sick of looking at it, so Madison and I set to work! We removed ALL the rock, including the rock with her T. maxima clam on it. We kept all the rock in buckets of tank water, removing them, one at a time, and removing as much bubble algae as possible, then placing them back in a different bucket. I then removed as many floating bubbles, and all the bubbles off the sand bed, as possible. During this whole procedure, most of the corals went into our 40 breeder. After finishing it all up, we re-aquascaped, placing everything back in the tank. During this procedure, I also did about a 50% water change. It was a cloudy mess, for several hours, with sand needing to settle. Finally, it was completely clear and I was awaiting Angie's arrival home from work. About 2:30, I looked at her tank, to find it all cloudy again! What the Heck? As I was looking at it, the clam convulsed a few times and spewed out a bunch of sperm! It did this, for about another 30 minutes or so, allowing me to get some pictures and even a couple videos. Then, it went into a resting period, for about 10 minutes, before starting to convulse again, this time, spewing out eggs. The spawning of eggs lasted about 25 minutes.

Unfortunately, by the time I realized what was going on, and got the camera out, the water was already very cloudy, so the pictures aren't the greatest. I'm currently uploading the videos to Youtube and will get them, and the photos, posted soon.

Oh and now I'll probably have to do another HUGE water change, tomorrow...GRRR!

gar732 · Aug 2, 2011

That's pretty cool, any chance any of them will grow?

skinz78 · Aug 2, 2011

How big is the clam? I am thinking you will want to skim pretty heavily and do some water changes ASAP as the spawning can fowl the water quickly.

Gar nobody has yet to grow baby clams in the hobby. There is a larval stage and they don't make it though it with all the pumps, skimmer and predation.

returnofsid · Aug 2, 2011

gar732 said:
That's pretty cool, any chance any of them will grow?

There's virtually no chance of any eggs surviving. Typically, it's said that only about 5 percent of the billions of eggs actually get fertilized. Then, they go through a 2 stage metamorphis period. Even with the proper set up, it's very difficult to get more than a few to survive. In a typical reef tank, all of the gametes will be eaten by fish, corals, pods, or sucked up in the filtration. The ones that aren't eaten or filtered out, are most likely to get bacterial infections, which kill them. In the proper set up, antibiotics are added, continuously, to avoid this problem.

returnofsid · Aug 2, 2011

skinz78 said:
How big is the clam? I am thinking you will want to skim pretty heavily and do some water changes ASAP as the spawning can fowl the water quickly.

Gar nobody has yet to grow baby clams in the hobby. There is a larval stage and they don't make it though it with all the pumps, skimmer and predation.

The clam is about 3" so not huge. Unfortunately, the skimmer sucks, so I'll have to rely on some large water changes.

Actually, there have been a few success stories, within the hobby, with T. crocea, T. maximas and Hippopus clams, using raceway systems. The success stories aren't huge, but they have happened. The biggest problem, IF any survive the 2 metamorphosis stages, is that they're "born" without any Zooanthella, so a living clam has to be "sacrificed." A living clam is actually blended up, YES, in a blender, and poured into the raceway, where the babies are able to "collect" the Zooanthella.

Believe it or not, a public high school, on the east coast, has successfully raised T. crocea and T. maxima, to sexually mature adults.

returnofsid · Aug 2, 2011

Here's the crappy pics! Clownfish went NUTS, gobbling it up!

Here's a couple pics of the eggs being spewed forth

Videos are taking awhile to upload, so they'll be posted later.

skinz78 · Aug 2, 2011

Wow I didn't know that, do you have a link to the story on the classrooms success?

returnofsid · Aug 3, 2011

I apologize for the poor quality of the videos, as well as the sound in the back ground. These are the first videos I've ever taken, with my Canon 7D. I had no idea it would record video, without a microphone connected...lol.

As you can see, the clown fish went nuts, eating the gametes.

[video=youtube;CwvJqUrnC4U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwvJqUrnC4U[/video]

[video=youtube;RvTitlxUIhg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvTitlxUIhg[/video]

[video=youtube;qbq2l24OkJo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbq2l24OkJo[/video]

returnofsid · Aug 3, 2011

skinz78 said:
Wow I didn't know that, do you have a link to the story on the classrooms success?

I'm not sure if there's any online documentation available, still or not. It's the Sound School, in New Haven, CT. It's a public high school, with a vocational Aquaculture program, for both fresh and saltwater. They used to sell several strains of phyto, some corals and a few clown fish that they'd bred. They were also one of the very first entities to successfully spawn and raise a couple different species of lobsters.

shred5 · Aug 3, 2011

It spawned because it was stressed. Clams do that as well as allot of other salt water invertebrates. Basically, last chance for survival instinct.

Clams are especially known for this. They will lower the water level to let the clams bake in the sun for a little while to induce spawning. This will stress the clam and force them to spawn. They also have been known to do this after a big water change that may have stressed the clam.

Dave Polzin

Paul_N · Aug 3, 2011

shred5 said:
It spawned because it was stressed. Clams do that as well as allot of other salt water invertebrates. Basically, last chance for survival instinct.

Clams are especially known for this. They will lower the water level to let the clams bake in the sun for a little while to induce spawning. This will stress the clam and force them to spawn. They also have been known to do this after a big water change that may have stressed the clam.

Dave Polzin

Or it is a completely healthy clam and just a natural response to the build up of gametes. Doesn't have to be stressed to spawn. My dersa spawned about 9 months ago. None of my other six clams spawned at that time.

returnofsid · Aug 3, 2011

shred5 said:
It spawned because it was stressed. Clams do that as well as allot of other salt water invertebrates. Basically, last chance for survival instinct.

Clams are especially known for this. They will lower the water level to let the clams bake in the sun for a little while to induce spawning. This will stress the clam and force them to spawn. They also have been known to do this after a big water change that may have stressed the clam.

Dave Polzin

As for a stress induced spawning event, that's possible, however...

Usually, if a clam spawns, due to stress, as a last ditch survival effort, the clam usually spews out sperm and eggs, at the same time and quickly.

When a healthy, mature clam spawns, it usually consists of the clam spewing sperm, over about a 30-45 minute period, a rest period and then the spewing of the eggs, for a similar amount of time.
This is how our T. maxima spawned, leading me to believe that even if it was stress induced, it wasn't that stressed.

Yes, the re-aquascaping and large water change, is what probably induced the spawning event. Similar things have also been known to induce some anemones to split.

This morning, the clam is doing just fine. Tank has cleared up. I'm still planning on doing a large water change, today, to reduce the chances of an ammonia spike, as the gametes die off. If this had happened in our 200, I wouldn't worry about a water change, but since it happened in Angie's 24 gallon, I'll play it safe...lol.

FiReBReTHa · Aug 3, 2011

And thats why I always swim with my mouth closed.

returnofsid · Aug 3, 2011

FiReBReTHa said:
And thats why I always swim with my mouth closed.

Not a bad idea!! lol

shred5 · Aug 3, 2011

Paul_PSU said:
Or it is a completely healthy clam and just a natural response to the build up of gametes. Doesn't have to be stressed to spawn. My dersa spawned about 9 months ago. None of my other six clams spawned at that time.

I never said his clam wasnt healthy. This how they induce spawning when they aquaculture clams. He took it out of the water and placed it in a bucket for a while? Could this not stress a clam?

Does a clam know how long it will be in that stituation?

Dave Polzin

shred5 · Aug 3, 2011

returnofsid said:
As for a stress induced spawning event, that's possible, however...

Usually, if a clam spawns, due to stress, as a last ditch survival effort, the clam usually spews out sperm and eggs, at the same time and quickly.

.

Thatâ€™s very debatable. Even though they have both male and female organs almost all literature says it is not possible to release both sparm and eggs at the same time to prevent self fertilization.

Dave Polzin

skinz78 · Aug 3, 2011

Since this clam is so small I am wondering if it was actually stress induced. I've never had clams spawn so I can't say for sure.

returnofsid · Aug 3, 2011

skinz78 said:
Since this clam is so small I am wondering if it was actually stress induced. I've never had clams spawn so I can't say for sure.

Though small, it's sexually mature. Sexually immature clams haven't developed the ability to produce eggs, so would just spew sperm. Once they've reached sexually maturity, they will spew both sperm and then eggs.