New idea rolling around in my empty head.

I have heard lots of people complain about small Maxima clams not being very hardy at all. Up until recently I have just ignored the complaints about this size problem.

I have been having issues keeping my small Maxima's happy in my 40g tank. I have lost a few here and there but mostly I have to keep moving them around to keep them happy. The larger clams are all happy and not having any problems. With the exception of one larger Crocea. The Crocea had a pretty huge mantle.

So here is my thought, and please give your thoughts on it too.

I am thinking the higher flow reef tanks "30 times turnover or more" is too much for the smaller Maxima's to handle. When I say smaller I mean 3" or less.

The reasoning for me thinking I haven't had this problem before is that I have had much larger tanks than the current 40G that I have. I am wondering if the 40 X is really bouncing around too much in the smaller compartment of this tank.....

I am thinking since I am done buying things for a while now that I am going to take my 20g QT tank and turn it into a small Maxima clam dominant tank. I have a HOB refugium that would fit the tank perfectly.

Any thoughts?

Well first off if you put a sponge up there the thoughts will stay


Second I've told you I've not had any success with the small ones myself either in the past but this time all the small ones I've gotten have and are doing great. The only ones I had a problem with was 2 of the ones I got from Tobin but only due to the fault on FEDEX all the other small ones are doing great and the one I got from the LFS is about a inch and a half so my small clam handicap appears to be healing

I have a 1.5" crocea that seems happy. My flame scallop I had for like 9 months up and died though. I think it was a water quality issue though. I have been slacking on water changes.

I tried but the sponge fell out when I was picking my nose.

A 1.5" Crocea could be 4 or 5 years old. The only clams that I have heard people having issues with was the Maxima's.

Gotta use some of that super glue like I did. Try it it works

It is the mantle getting blown too crazily on them.

I've tried the small maximas several times, always with the same result. I usually keep them in a "current sheltered area" where they have access to plenty of light but less current. My tank has some pretty wicked circulation in it so not only would this be a problem for their mantles, but they get blown over.

I found for the most part, that their survival definitely hinged on their ability to stay upright. I would sandwich them between small rocks to try to keep them upright but they'd jump all over the place, ultimately to their own demise. They'd get wedged under a rock somewhere and I'd miss seeing them and find an empty shell. I even tried making a little cup of epoxy for them, no go. A little rubbermaid container with some sand in it, still dead. Eventually I got frustrated at my inability to keep them and gave up. Sad because thats the only maximas we get up here. For some reason only the teardrops (the fugly brown ones no other country wants) are a decent size and usually about 5-6". All the relatively pretty maximas are about 1.5" and just not suited for my tank (or maybe its just me they don't like )

you know thats an interesting problem, since out in the ocean these animals are subject to whatever flow they get where they first landed. that means they very well could be exposed to high flow or low flow or anything in between. it would be an interesting study to take a flow meter and get an average out on the reefs of the flow directly above/around wild clams, to see if there is a magic flow rate that bears the highest sucess and longest lifespan.

What I am leaning towards is the 40x turnover in my small tank being too much?

yeh i duno ive seen several SPS tanks that had happy clams in them that had 40x flow, but the clams were seated in a slightly sheltered spot that the branches of the SPS around them kind of dampened the force of the flowing water.

it certianly wouldnt hurt to drop the flow rate some...

The problem with clams 2" and smaller and sometime 2 1/2" is that they do not photosynthesize very well, they rely a lot on catching phytoplankton in the water column. It isn't until they are larger that they develop this ability to pull nutrients from the light source. One thing you can try is to feed every day phytoplankton the other is to increase the time your light are on or the intensity that they are receiving. Like puthtem as close to the top as you can.

Small clams photosynthesize just fine. Its a myth that they are not big enough or developed enough and need to be feed phyto to live. I wrote this a while back about feeding small clams

My theory of why some of these small clams dont do well is that just like any other living thing the very young and very old are more susceptible to stress, diseases ect.. These small clams have gone through hell by the time they make it into you tank. These clams are bagged up at the farms and shipped off to importers, this trip can take 30+hours. They might sit there for a few days (or not) and then they are bagged up again and shipped to regional distributors or retailers, another 16hours. Then again they sit a day or two and are bagged again and sent to us and if you bought online thats another 16hours. Thats a lot of picking up and moving around for a young delicate animal.

Back to flow. I can see how with these small cultured maximas that too much flow too fast could irritate them. In most cases these small clams havent ever been in the ocean. They are coming directly from the clam farm raceways and they dont run very much water flow through them. They will do maybe one water change a day on those tans and the rest of the time there is no flow in the tanks.

So thats why they can survive. what is a good clam size to take and have better vitality ;