dersa?

[badgers]

let me get this straight.
Giant clam means big clam right?
which is the smallest of these big clams?
I only want to get one if it won't outgrow my tank.
I assume maxima means "the biggest there is"
what do you people do with these things when they get to big? Clam bake?
In knopps book There was a shell that looked like it was 2' long.
PS I don't own knopps book I use the library so I have to go from memory, it may not be knopps book.
Am I wrong? don't some of these clams get giant(read to big for my 110 gallon)
thank you for your time and have a good day

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I'm so skeptical, I can hardly believe it!
The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant

[Green Lantern]

Badgers

T. gigas is the largest of the clams. I saw a T. derasa at an lfs in Seattle that was the size of a rugby ball maybe even a little bigger. It was a good 14" long, 10" wide and 8" high. I think it was in a 120 and it looked awesome. Maximas and Croceas are the most brilliantly colored. I read the above in TRA vol. 1

Troy

[This message has been edited by Green Lantern (edited 05-02-2000).]

[JohnL]

This is from memory so I hope it is correct ;)

From smallest to largest species:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI> T. crocea
<LI> T. maxima
<LI> T. derasa
<LI> T. sqamosa
<LI> T. gigas
</UL>

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Peace - John

[badgers]

so to will a T. crocea outgrow my 110XH?
I don't want to have a clam bake :eek:

[JohnL]

I'm pretty sure that T. crocea will only grow to around 10" or so. The T. maxima will grow a little larger. I wish I had my copy of Knopp's book here with me. The only clam that would surely outgrow the tank over time is the T. gigas. Be aware the the T. crocea and T. maxima need the most light of all the Tridacna clams.

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Peace - John

[Flamehawk]

Badgers, hee, hee, finally i get to return all the help i've recived from you. JohnL's list is right on target, except that derasa is actually the second biggest clam. You can go ahead and place that order for the crocea, it will NEVER outgrow your 110gal tank, trust me. The biggest i've seen, and i've seen many, has never been over six inches. Even then, it'll take years for a crocea to reach that size as they are the slowest growing clams. In his Giant Clams book, Knop writes, "Tridacna crocea is the smallest of all species. Even fully grown, it's shells do not grow larger than 13 to 15 centimeters." (For those of you that think in inches, one inch equals 2.5cm).

Knop lists the maximum sizes of the different Species as follows:
crocea:13-15cm
squamosa:30-40cm
maxima:30-40cm(very rare to reach this size)
derasa:50-60cm
gigas:largest found was 137cm

tevora, hipopus, rosewateri, and porcellanus are rarely encountered in both nature and the trade and i will not mention their size.

Hope this helps.

JOHNNY

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www.homestead.com/johnnymok (http://www.homestead.com/johnnymok)

[badgers]

thank you all for the help and information

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I'm so skeptical, I can hardly believe it!
The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant

[Flamehawk]

Jim, yeap, looks like your clams would like being under thst type of light. My tank is 28" with a 5" sandbed and i keep all my clams, including maximas and croceas, at the bottom of the tank. I used Iwasaki 250's for around four months and have recently switched to 250watt 10k hqi. I like how they look better under the hqi's, but that's a different story. My oldest clam, a derasa, was kept under (2) 55watt power compacts for two and a half years until i moved it to my new tank with the afformentioned lighting. The derasa and all the other clams that were kept with the power compects survived, but now under the stronger lighting, they are thriving. HTH.

JOHNNY

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www.homestead.com/johnnymok (http://www.homestead.com/johnnymok)

[Staceon]

Here is Knop online:
http://members.home.net/kevdone/AF/On_The_Half_Shell.html

[jimhobbs]

While we're on the subject,
One of the reasons I upgraded lighting was the hope of keeping one of the brilliant blue/purple clams....Stated above; they are the most light loving...Can I keep one under 300watts vho/4 bulbs if placed in the top of the tank?[29gal]...By keep one, I mean will it thrive and grow?...I don't just want it to survive, but prosper! :)


Thanks for your help...jim :)

[horge]

Hey jim, you can get by with even less IME.
In any case, intensity is an iffy measure without mentioning photoperiod, hehehe.

I remember Ron and others correctly pointing out the predatory component of Tridacnid nutrition as being larger in proportion to zooxanthellar, the smaller the clam is, so there's another reason to choose specimen size accordingly.

I have to point out that non-native lighting spectrum can and will alter the coloration of a collected Tridacnid's mantle. Stereotypically, if you don't keep some yellow in the lighting, the electric blues can dull to a dead violet-gray.

To pile onto all the info given our man badgers: reeftanks (filthy as they generally are in comparison to natural reefs) tend to stunt the growth of nearly all animals maintained, so any clam eventually outgrowing a 110 might be unusual. HTH

[This message has been edited by horge (edited 05-03-2000).]