[Mr.Lizard]

Yeah- I lost another of the smaller ones a few days ago in my 20Long experiment. All the fish are still doing great! No water changes....

I wouldn't depend on these clams as a cure for what might ail you- just an additional interesting piece of a diverse biosphere. In my main reef tank system I have Feather Caulerpa, Chaetomorpha, giant clams, (derasa and gigas) Red Mangroves, wet/dry, DSB refugium on reverse daylight, feather duster colonies, multiple mobile inverts including an awesome purple and orange reef lobster (@ 5 years in the tank and no fish attacked- I hand feed him!), several varieties/colors of all types of coral from SPS to LPS to softies and gorgonians and zooanthids and all the bugs my 4 year old fat mandarin can pig out on, and about 20x worth of turnover per hour water flow....I feel that having a wide diversity of animals, water flow, bacteria, and filtration methods are the best way to have a healthy system. A little bit of everything to get the job done. With more going on you have less chance of any one thing that might go wrong destroying the entire system, in my opinion. Did I mention this is only a 55g with maybe 5g worth of additional under tank water? It's been an active running system for nearly 14 years! I'm not skimming at all currently, and I change @ 5% of my water 2 or 3 times a month. B-Ionic supplementation mostly- some others here and there like kalk drip, strontium/molybdenum, and Reef Plus. Just enough to point the tank in the right direction- nature takes care of the rest!