clams questions about clams

RogerWilco357 · Jul 17, 2012

Is there a limit as to how many clams can be kept in a tank ? or a clam per gallon ratio used ? how many clams do you have in your tank?

Shauno · Jul 17, 2012

That's a great question, and I have no idea the answer.

IME, it is just about maintaining a balance of enough nutrients for clams' health and growth without causing issues for the rest of your corals/reef. A decent fish load that's being fed properly/regularly surely helps...

I have seen your tank on another thread, but never saw any clams pictured (only your insanely incredible acros)... How many clams do you have, and sizes?

ritter6788 · Jul 17, 2012

You can add as many as you would like as long as they have light, nutrients and proper water chemistry. Dosing alk, cal, and mag to a tank crammed completely full of clams could turn into a full time job though.

skinz78 · Jul 18, 2012

I once had 34 clams in a 120g setup, they did great but it was a pain to keep up on all the cal and alk takeup.

skinz78 · Jul 18, 2012

I should add that right now I have 2 6" Squamosa's 1 3.5" Squamosa, 1 4" Maxima 1 2.5" Maxima, 1 3" Crocea and 1 2" Crocea in my 120g DT. I also have 3 2.5" Squamosa's in my daughters 20g tank.

stylaster · Jul 18, 2012

when i was doing my clam breeding experiments i had 60 clams in a 200g raceway. Again the issue is keeping up with calcium, alk, mg, etc. Also with that many I had a school of 15 chromis in there to provide nutrients to the tank. Most clams take up a lot of calcium for lateral shell growth until they hit about 4" then slow down and start working on shell thickness.
There is always a problem of a clam stripping out the nutrients it needs in a reef tank pretty fast (especially a system setup for SPS). Clams can go through nitrate, phosphate very fast in a system that is too clean. So you will need to add that back into the water to help maintain clam health if your looking at having a lot of clams in a system. On the upside you dont have to worry about running a phosphate remover, or nitrate reducer!

creefer · Jul 18, 2012

Glad I saw this thread. I've been thinking of adding my first ever clam to my new system but decided not to until I do more homework on the proper husbandry and the affect to the system by way of clam additions.

pickupman66 · Jul 18, 2012

Fish poop is a good thing for clams. I dont know the gallonage that Dr Mac has at Pacific east but they regularly have 1000 pieces in stock.

m and m · Jul 18, 2012

Not really as long as they are getting good stable cal and alk. They also love there light. Keep in mind they suck down cal and alk like crazy so if you are planning lets say 6 in a 10G tank keeping your alk stable is going to be very rough without it being plumbed into a larger system or 2 part I dont think WC once a week will cut it.

Loki · Jul 19, 2012

skinz78 said:
I once had 34 clams in a 120g setup, they did great but it was a pain to keep up on all the cal and alk takeup.

Do you have any pictures? was it setup just for clams, or was it part of a reef?

stylaster said:
when i was doing my clam breeding experiments i had 60 clams in a 200g raceway. Again the issue is keeping up with calcium, alk, mg, etc. Also with that many I had a school of 15 chromis in there to provide nutrients to the tank. Most clams take up a lot of calcium for lateral shell growth until they hit about 4" then slow down and start working on shell thickness.
There is always a problem of a clam stripping out the nutrients it needs in a reef tank pretty fast (especially a system setup for SPS). Clams can go through nitrate, phosphate very fast in a system that is too clean. So you will need to add that back into the water to help maintain clam health if your looking at having a lot of clams in a system. On the upside you dont have to worry about running a phosphate remover, or nitrate reducer!

pickupman66 said:
Fish poop is a good thing for clams. I dont know the gallonage that Dr Mac has at Pacific east but they regularly have 1000 pieces in stock.

I read this as well. From what I have read it is not ideal to "feed" clams as the particle size they need is quite small, and that fish poop is great stuff! :squigglemouth:

larryl · Jul 19, 2012

I have only 4 clams in a 165.

skinz78 · Jul 19, 2012

Loki2902 said:
Do you have any pictures? was it setup just for clams, or was it part of a reef?

Yep it was a reef setup. Although I am not sure that these pic's were from when I had 34 clams in it. I can't find pic's of that time, I have thousands of pic's in my PB acct and these are what I could find easily.