It’s not even necessarily that the angel will eat the clam but will nip on it causing injuries to the clam and leading to its demise. Clams don’t handle harassment very well. If they get stressed they’ll quickly die.
I got rid of the Emperor Angel a few weeks ago and put my clam in the main tank (after talking my wife into letting me get rid of the Angel and get a Coral Beauty instead).
Nice!!
Man I was reading this thread with a sense of dread, and I am so surprised that you had this (the best) outcome! For anyone else out there, clams can live a very long time and grow very fast, and do horribly in nano tanks. The big problem is that if they are healthy, an actively growing clam should be an alkalinity sucking sponge. When they build their shell, they fix so much calcium and alkalinity so quickly that it really is extremely difficult to keep up. If a future reader does want to try a clam in a small tank, an 3+ inch crocea is the way to go imho. Their growth has slowed a bit by then and they don't get as large in general. A crocea with a max size of 5 or 6 inches is a far more manageable beast than a squamosa that WILL become huge if it is in even "adequate" conditions. Crocea do tend to like a little higher par though.
Thanks! Lol. It really just came down to me showing my wife that the Emperor (I named him Palpatine... should have known he'd kill everything.. lol) was attacking my corals and would do the same to my clam (found out its a Durasa, not Maxima) if I put it in my main tank. So then I told her we could get a second Display tank for the clams and corals, or get rid of the Emperor and she agreed to return the Emperor Angel. When she went to the LFS with me, she fell in love with the Lion Fish, Picasso Trigger, Clown Trigger, Magnificent Angel and a freaking puffer.... I had to tell her the problem is that she likes the fish that eat everything in our tank.... So, when (if) we move, I'll likely end up setting up a FOWLR Predator Tank for her in addition to our 150. Having a second tank already set up and running would be ideal for moving all of our fish at this point, anyway.
The sweet spot for maxima clams is also "medium" size. When they are too small they are often still depending on phytoplankton for nutrition and many starve within a month or two. When they come in as maricultured 5-6 inch clams, they often die in the 5-8 month range. It's not entirely clear why. People used to speculate that they became dependent on the ultra bright conditions in the mariculture facilities and couldn't adapt to aquarium light. Keep in mind that they grow them in 2 foot deep raceway tanks near the equator. It really is a super super high light scenario.
They had some smaller Maxima's about 2-3", but I was worried about them not acclimating well to my tank. They also had a couple more Durasa's and some other ones, that I forgot what they were, but they were rare from what I remember.
Honestly I haven't seen great maxima and crocea clams recently. I'm not sure if they haven't done well with the general shift in the hobby to LEDs, or what. I suggest that you closely watch the live aquaria divers den for clams. It's absolutely the sort of thing you want to buy wysiwyg. They haven't had fantastic clams in a while, but from time to time they have great ones.
Awesome, thanks for the info! My Ca is at 480 and has been steady for a month, but I have been checking it every 3-4 days. Alk has been at the top of the specs as well. I've been dosing All For Reef and adjusting the dosage amounts, I've been doing
Those Squamosa are absolutely gorgeous, how much do they normally go for? I saw one of the articles that said "down to $99" but I don't think that's the one you were referring to.
Sounds good! Keep track of your parameters and adjust if needed!
Seems reasonable!
What about some nice fairy wrasse in there? Good for a 50g.
Looks happy as a ....clam.
.... an update on my clam.
The water is a little cloudy at the moment, but it's getting better.
2 tangs might be a bit much in a 50 gallon. *but* it sounds like you have a good selection of fish to put in it. Only other fish I could personally recommend is a yellow foxface, midas blenny, diamond Goby, blue damsel, purple dottyback and a longnose hawkfish. I gotta say though, the hawkfish turned into one of my favorites (other than my Naso Tang), with the way he likes to perch on the frag racks, power heads, etc and just hang out and watch everybody including waiting on me to come by with food.
