cleaner clams

[Invigor]

yay or nay? I'm getting mixed reviews and looking for ways to lower my nitrates..tank is ~140gal fowlr for the most part. and about 80ppm nitrates :redface:

thanks.

[Montana]

first what is causing the nitrates, do you have a sump or canister filter how much water do you change and how often, did you add some live rock lately what is your amonia at, do you have gravel or bb.

[mr_alberta]

I've tried this. I had 3, but 2 died within a week and the 3rd about a week after that. I don't know what long term survivability is for those clams as they are from cooler waters.

[Invigor]

first what is causing the nitrates

I have big fish and I enjoy feeding them. I guess I lied, there must be about 180gal in there.

I do 30gal changes monthly. I have a huge sump (110gal 1/2 to 2/3 full), huge skimmer, 10gal fuge. sugar sand in display, small sized cc in fuge. just picked up some chaeto for the fuge gonna see how that does.

cutting back food is not an option, I'm just looking for ways to absorb the nitrates.

I've tried this. I had 3, but 2 died within a week and the 3rd about a week after that. I don't know what long term survivability is for those clams as they are from cooler waters.

I have a few, will see how they do.. chances are I'll have to pull them out in a few days and just slice em open and feed em to the fish.

[Montana]

you should be doing at least 10% a week or 20% every 2 weeks especially if if you want to have a clam,or you can add more rock if you currently are not at 1/3 total volume to rock and, carbon will help also but it has to be replaced more often.

[mr_alberta]

Clams use up nitrates in an aquarium. Besides, he's not talking clams like Croceas or Maximas...he's talking grocery store clams that are sold per pound...

[Ruth]

I know that I like to feed my 230 fairly heavily and have battled nitrates a time or 2. I found that adding a lot of cheato to the fuge AND harvesting it regularly helped quite a bit to pull them down. I also went to wet - really wet skimming and made sure to top off with some salt water - helped as well. I used to have large sponges in my sump where the fuge spilled over into the final chamber where the skimmer is. Even though I rinsed and scrubbed the heck out of these sponges on a weekly basis I still found that after I removed them completely my nitrates were noticably lower and through a process of elimination narrowed it down to the sponges. I have since removed all sponges from my tanks with the exception of my 2 Nano tanks as I do not skim these tanks. Filter socks are also notorious for nitrates. HTH
Edit - to the original question in your post I have never tried the cleaner clams but do have various crocea and squamosa clams that have also aided in nitrate buildup.

[Jaws]

I like the fuge idea myself. All natural, can be a natural source of food for the fish if you can have it above the tank so it empties into it and works very well in my opinion. Good Luck!

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

At the old house, I used to buy clams from Superstore, acclimatize them in my cooler water (68-70F) 20g, then transfer them into my 100g fowlr. I had them live in the fowlr for as long as 6+ months. And the great thing was that if they died or the fish got too hungry, the clams became a food source for the hungry fish. Clams are used to entice finicky fish to eat, so there's almost no chance that if it is on the surface or half buried in the substrate that it would die & rot before the fish find & eat it. At least that was my experience, but I had a shallow substrate bed.

The important thing was to acclimatize them in the cooler water (but warmer than in nature) first for a few weeks. (2-4)

Anthony

[mark]

The important thing was to acclimatize them in the cooler water (but warmer than in nature) first for a few weeks. (2-4)

Anthony

What would you feed then while acclimatizing, no mantles but what about lighting?

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

They're filter feeders. In the 20g, it was fairly "dirty" so they just helped to clean it for me. Same with the fowlr. When I fed my fish, you could see the siphon tubes poke out of the shell & start sucking up bits of food/nutrients from the frzn mysis & such. I'm not sure how great these manila & butter clams are for nitrate removal. I just thought of them more as living filters to catch & remove small particles.

If I had the money/space/time, I would love to set up a special giant clam refugium as a nitrate remover. Hmmmmm.

Anthony

[Invigor]

At the old house, I used to buy clams from Superstore, acclimatize them in my cooler water (68-70F) 20g, then transfer them into my 100g fowlr. I had them live in the fowlr for as long as 6+ months. And the great thing was that if they died or the fish got too hungry, the clams became a food source for the hungry fish. Clams are used to entice finicky fish to eat, so there's almost no chance that if it is on the surface or half buried in the substrate that it would die & rot before the fish find & eat it. At least that was my experience, but I had a shallow substrate bed.

The important thing was to acclimatize them in the cooler water (but warmer than in nature) first for a few weeks. (2-4)

Anthony

thank you, that's what I was looking for. so far I've had 3 split open..I just take them out and let my angels go at em. they love it. When I acclimated them, I didn't use cool water - I just put them in a pail and used an IV line to drip acclimate them for about an hour then dropped them in the refugium. We'll see how/if it helps at all. I also picked up a clump of chaeto finally!