Need Clam Recommendations
 

Hi all, I'm thinking that it may be time to add a clam to my tank, but I'm not sure what species I should be looking at. My tank is 120g (24" deep) mixed SPS/LPS reef with an 8 bulb T5 Tek lighting fixture. I'm hoping that my lighting won't be the limiting factor, as it's bright enough that I have to keep my brain coral (rests on the sandbed) in the shadows to get it to open... Any suggestions?

How old is the tank?.....Squamosas and derasas are lower light requiring and more tolerant of water quality, but get huge.....Maximas and croceas are more finicky on water quality and light but only get about 8-9"

The tank is about 9 months old. I'd probably want one of the smaller species if my lighting permits. I'm not sure if my water quality is quite there yet if they're too finicky though, as I just finished battling a small cyano outbreak...

Your light is good for clams. As to water parameters, do you test your water? If yes, post your readings, like nitrate and phosphate, and we will see. IMO, clams are less demanding on water quality than SPS because clams can uptake ammonia and/or nitrate.

As fishytime pointed out, Derasa's and Squamosa's will be fine. If you are considering a Crocea or Maxima, they will sometimes go in rock work, so you could just put them closer to the lights if you have room.

Water quality readings as of this afternoon:
Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrate: 0
Kh: 7
Calcium: 440
Phosphate: 0 (undetectable)

I hadn't run any tests for 6 weeks or so and didn't realize that I had ammonia in my tank. I'm guessing that the tank hasn't stabilized since I added a group of three anthias about a month ago. I usually only add one fish at a time, but I thought it best to keep the group of anthias together. The ammonia reading is pretty low, but I'm guessing that I should wait for the ammonia to drop to 0 again before adding a clam?

I actually got some nice Squamosa clams in last night.

About 3" to 5"

Ken

Can you retest your Nitrate, Nitrite and NH3 levels for us? At 9 months of running unless you have somehow destroyed your bacterial colonies those levels don't make any sense.

What NH3 test are you using? If it's an API I'm thinking your just misreading the color and you actually have a zero reading. Regardless, your lighting is just fine for keeping all species of clams and your CA/ALK is in the perfect range. I would say re-test those 3 levels and then you good to go and get addicted to clams like the rest of us :lol:.

My NH3 kit is Red Sea, and it is a bit hard to tell between 0 and 0.25. The rest of the kits are API. It does seem strange that I'm picking up ammonia. Usually if there's anything off in my tank my duncan closes right up until I fix the problem, and he's happy as can be right now. I also have 4 sps corals showing full polyp extension.

I ran my ammonia and nitrate tests again (I don't have a nitrite kit) and got pretty much the same result. The ammonia could almost be interpreted as 0, but I know I've had the test return a "yellower" colour than that before. Maybe I'll take some water in to an LFS this weekend and have it tested. I think if I actually had ammonia in the tank I'd be seeing a reaction from the corals.