low nutrient systems with clams?

[TerraC]

Hi guys..

any of you running a low nutrient system with clams? I understand there are clam foods available from the 'lith people but I was under the impression that clams require a little bit of nitrate and phosphate in the water? Is there a danger of pushing the nutrients too low and it having an effect on a clam?

am I barking up the wrong tree? appreciate your input fellas..

Ray

[Will]

there is a risk but its all about ballance tbh, if you want to keep some of the lps and clams that do grab food from the nutrients in the water then the best route is to go with a lower dosage of bak and keep up the dosage of min s, as well as healthy fish stock

[markey]

so in theory could you dose to be able to lower nutrients but not totally strip them out ,

hope that makes sense !!

[KeithM]

There is also a substantial amount of food returning to the tank in the form of bacterial mulm and amino acids

[Marc Foord]

i'm only running the FM half system (i.e. bag of ultralith in the sump, adding ultra organic, mins and bak daily, plus feeding ultra clam and min f daily).

i tried another clam just before i started on the FM system - having tried 2 small blue ones previously without luck. this one is a larger gold one.

can't believe the growth - i've had it since the end of january and the fresh shell growth (bright white as opposed to duller colours for the original shell) is about 1cm or more already.....

[markey]

marc thats interesting about the clams

ive always struggled with small clams ie any thing under 3inches really

this might be the way forward then

[TerraC]

thanks for the comments guys. I've not introduced a clam to my tank yet but plan to in the future. Jez is kindly going to send me one of the "ultra" sample packs which I am going to try out on my little system, will post the results.

[Marc Foord]

markey

yep, tried 2 small blue ones, they were fine for a couple of weeks, then would always find a slime trail waving in the tank in the morning, and all that was left was the shell..... :(

was very unsure about trying another one, but since a few things had changed since, i went for the larger one, and fingers crossed, so far so good - amazed at the growth.

i've since read a few times on here that the small ones are trickier in that they need more feeding - but i'm guessing the addition of the ultraclam food is also helping (incidentally, the lps seem to respond well to this and the min f)

marc

[jez]

Hi
As with all things Low nutrient as long as you keep it sensible and respond to whats happening to the animals in the tank clams will look fine in a lower nutrient environment. It is a bit of a misnomer that clams need phosphate and nitrate as in the wild they get exactly the same as the toadstool or acropora sitting next to them :D

Most studies have shown that clams can obtain about 15% of there nutritional needs from amino acids and as much as 80% from light this varies a bit from species to species. They can also make good use of phyto plankton and bacterial mulm in fact they thrive on the stuff.

In a low nutrient environment you should see better definition in mantle pattern and colouration. If you feel the clam has nutritional problems then try using the Ultra Clam food mixed with Min-S or something like Supergreen both can provide useful food sources for clams.

As for small clams the biggest problem with their survival is stress. Mostly from falling off rocks, handling and too many fish swimming over them and using up essential energy most of the smaller ones become tired out due to constantly having to use the abductor muscle to respond to the shadows of fish swimming over them. In the aquarium the fish density around them can be very high. Also lack of good nutrition can exasperate the problem.

Jez