clams

saltydunc

saltydunc

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Apr 11, 2007
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dundee scotland
ive just upgraded my lights to t5 lighting......the original lights were 5ft florescents which actually looked great and gave a good light but didn't allow me to keep hard corals which was frustrating cause every time i went into my lfs and seen a coral i liked the girl would always say my lighting was not good enough :(......so i went and bought my t5s on her recomendation......i would like to keep a clam and was wondering what would be a good hardy begginers clam to start off with and any other advice would be appreciated.....thanks guys.
 
Depends on the T5 set-up you have, how deep your tank is...etc. If they have individual reflectors and the tank isn't too deep you could get by with pretty much any of the clams if your tank is capable of keeping harder to keep corals as well. It is more a matter of keeping them in the proper place in your tank once you have the right lights, water, and flow. I'd not call any of them beginngers or hardy species but I think you know that. You might want to also take a look at the clamsdirect.com forums. They have fantastic clam specific info.
 
I would not keep clams with T 5s they recommend Metal Halides for the fact that clams use photosynthesis. There is a very good book that I bought and I highly recommend it's called Giant Clams in the Sea and the Aquarium by James Fatherree. The most common clams are the crocea and the maxima the other calms just get to big for smaller tanks, the two that I mention live close to the surface in the ocean and need stronger lighting in order to survive in the aquarium. Check out my thread titled (New calm and coral) right now I have 2 crocea's and 1 small maxima in a 55 gal with Current Outer Orbit 2 150w Metal Halide and 4 by 54w T5 bulbs.
 
Yes they probably can but you would have to get the most wattage as you can in a fixture and then keep the light as close to the surface as possible. Just remember that crocea and maxima live in the ocean at no less then 5m most live with in 1m of the surface, also sometimes the tide goes out and leave them exposed to the air for hours. I'm not trying to discourage anybody from keeping clams just trying to inform as much as I can. In the Tridacnid family the Squamose is the most hardiest of the clams and probably would do well with T5 lights, but they grow large as much as 17" and will not do well in a smaller tank.
 
Clams in 24 inch deep tank with 4 inch sandbed with T-5's on IC 660 ballast with individual reflectors, the crocea has been in the tank for 18 months and has more than doubled in size and the maxima has been in the tank for 6 months and almost doubled in size.

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Its a 4 foot 65 gallon and I did try to put them up on the rock work but kept jumping off the rock so I just left them in the SB. I just put the maxima up on the rock work last week and it is still there but my little maxima keeps jumping off the rock work so I am leaving him in the sand also. The crocea was about 2 inches when I got it and it is like 5 inches or a little better now and the larger maxima was about 3 inches and now its alomst 5 inches.
 
Thanks for the replies......i was looking at these reflectors in my lfs and it says they are supposed to get another 100% of light out of the lighting system.... i will get them at the weekend....the light bar i bought is an arcadia set up and the only trouble is i don't like the look of it.....the problem being is it doesn't look as good as my original bar did.......so im going to take it back and get the proper juwel light bar which is a bit more expensive but will look much better......the arcadia has got 2 tubes in it so im hoping that juwel do a bar with 4 tubes to try and boost the lighting a bit......thats awesome looking clams you have there archer :)
 
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