quick easy clam QT and acclimation

[mbbuna]

Ok! i broke down and bought 2 clams Saturday. the first clams we've gotten in a year or so, so i had to set up the QT.

a QT can be as simple as you like or complex. i like simple. heres what i set up.

its just 2- 20gal tanks in a storage room in the basement. i used a pump from my RO container, spare heater, and took about 25gal out of our main system and 5 chunks of live rock i had sitting in the sump. done in all of 25min.



you can use a 10 gal tank if you like, with a simple foam filter(when not in use keep the foam in your sump) or a few chunks of LR and an air stone. you will be surprised how much water movement you get with just an air stone.

i set everything up 24hours ahead but if your using water from your tank and whatever you use for biological filtrating is already established you can use it right away.

9:10am there's a knock at the door



after the bomb sniff is done i feel safe to open the box

[mbbuna]

reputable vendors will include recommended acclimation instructions



as usual the packing was great. foam box, heat pack and extra thick double bags.



i usually take the extra bag(s) off so there is just one left. then place in the tank to match the temp. let it sit for 20-30 min. don't turn your lights on, the clams have been in complete darkness for 12 or 14 hours and you don't want to shock them, also intense lights will heat the water in the bag faster then the rest of the tank



while your waiting test the SG of the shipping water so you know how far off from your tank water it is and how much adjusting you need to do. my test showed 1.026, that what i keep my tank at so i was good, but you still need to slowly add water to get other parameters matched. the PH in the bag will be low, the clams been that small bag pulling O2 out and giving off CO2. you could test these things if you like but i dont bother, i just assume they are different then my tank.

next after the temp has matched, add about a 1/4 cup of water from the tank, wait 10 or 15min and do it again. do this untill you at least double the volume of water in the bag.

now test the SG in the bag to see if its the same as your tank. if so its time to put it in the tank.

remove the clam from the bag and give it a quick inspection. if you find a snail or something that can be QUICKLY removed do it. but the clam has been through enough stress already so if whatever cant be quickly removed just put the clam in the QT and deal with it later.

i found this



i dont know what it is but it would have taken some scrubbing to remove, ill deal with that later after the clams have settled in. that's why you should QT everything wet you get.

[Unarce]

Good show!

I'm surprised one of Barry's clams had something on it, but I guess he felt it was harmless. Still, better to remove it, just in case.

I'm a little embarassed, as it's far more than what I do when introducing new clams. For me, it's a FW dip, major scrubbing and picking with a toothbrush and toothpick, then it's into the tank.

[mbbuna]

i used to do that also untill i got PM and lost 12 clams

[mbbuna]

ok so the clams are in the tank now. you don't want to turn the lights on right away. give them a few hours.

while i was waiting i took a 150w MH off my frag tank and put it over the QT. any decent marine quality light should work but i thing its best to use something close to what you will be keeping them under.



i also put a piece of acrylic over the tank that i dipped in the sump so it gets covered with salt to help shade the clams from the light. i could have used the dirty screen on my front door also



now i know these clams were under 250w MH before i got them but its still a good idea to acclimate them to new lighting.

im going to keep the lights off for 4 or 5 hours then give them about 6 hours of light today, then over the next few days slowly increase the light up to about 9 hours

[jmaneyapanda]

darn you. show me a picture of the mantle!!! the suspense is killing me!

[mbbuna]

Originally posted by jmaneyapanda
darn you. show me a picture of the mantle!!! the suspense is killing me!

when the lights come on ill get some

[mbbuna]

ok here they are

[jmaneyapanda]

well done. I love maximas, so your top one really piques my interest. A store in atlanta has a connection somewhere or another and gets in like over 200 maximas, of all different colors, etc. It is phenomenal. And he displays them in an acrylic case like 5 foot by 10 foot by about 6 inches deep, so you can easily look down over them. It is awesome. I have gotten my most recent from there. Here is my last two (although they are about 8 months in the tank now).

[Unarce]

by mbbuna
ok here they are

Those suckers look very healthy. Nice and meaty. Nothing but the best from ClamsDirect

[Unarce]

by jmaneyapanda
A store in atlanta has a connection somewhere or another and gets in like over 200 maximas, of all different colors, etc.

Those are nice. I like the blotchy black and gold one a lot. You're lucky to have a LFS that's able to get that many maximas. I know that if I had that in my area, I'd definitely have more than one tank running

[mbbuna]

Originally posted by Unarce
Those suckers look very healthy. Nice and meaty. Nothing but the best from ClamsDirect

yes, yes and yes. the pics were taken with out flash and the clams were shaded. the top one has more of a dark purple in the light, and the bottom one has peach and a touch of red

[jmaneyapanda]

In reality, the black is a nice deep purple, and the gold is almost minty green. Very unique.

This store has about 40 more clams I'd love to buy, but my wife would cut off my "clams" if I did. They also have about 800 of the most colorful SPS frags I have ever seen. Nearly every display is lit with 1000 watters on motorized tracks and light chimneys. Real class act.

[ezcompany]

good stuff chris!
though i must say i disagree on the lighting part a little bit, i don't think the light they receive is a "shock" to them. under intense lighting you are probably right, but after acclimation and a good brush, i place them in the bottom of the tank. the clams open up immediately as if they were light starved! the reason i say that light acclimation isn't really an issue is cuz in natural conditions, it only takes an avg. of 15 minutes for the sunlight to reach full intensity over the waters on a reef. if this is true, then the whole sunrise sunset thingy people do with their lights is also unecessary.
that being said, i myself also got a clam today
i placed him in his own seperate container and put a half cap full of phyto for a mini phyto bath. (this is probably not a good idea but i have always done this without adverse effects) i then do the usual water acclimation, matching temperature and sg, not ph. the clam usually opens up already.
i give a good brush with a toothbrush and a dishwashing brush, then use a barbeque kebab stick to get the nooks and crannies in the maxima shell. total acclimation takes around 1.5 hours

here is a pic of my clam i got today:

[mbbuna]

thanks EZ

nice clam BTW. the thing with light shock is, in the wild they are used to the intensity they normally receive and adjust there zoox as conditions change(slow seasonal changes). but when they are collected and kept in a bag for shipping for 24hours, then go to wholesaler A with lighting x, to distributor b with lighting x(for who knows how long) then to LFS c that only has PC's and it sits there for a month, then you get it and drop it under 250w MH you can have some problems.

clams will regulate there zoox population depending on the amount of light they can get, and also the spectrum of light they receive. clams house between 5 and 7 different species of zoox(all with a different preferred light spectrum).

so let say you get a clam that been kept under 10k VHO's for a month. the zoox that prefers that spectrum will dominate, and the clam will allow the zoox to reproduce to the population size to keep the clam feed(extra zoox will be eaten or passed as pseudofeces). you get the clam and place it under 10k- 250MH for the same photo period. the zoox go crazy and produce a ton of O2. the clam can't handle it, O2 can poison the clam. so then the clam starts dumping the zoox.

IMO its just a good idea to acclimate to all changes

[mbbuna]

i got a closer look at the mystery object today. when i first looked at it after taking the clam out of the bag it was brown and knobby, i thought it was some kind of egg mass. today it bright red and green, i think its some kind of coral anyone have any ideas?

[mbbuna]

heres some slightly better photos of it. it reminds me of a colony tunicate but each mass has a few mouths. but i dont think its a sponge either.

[ezcompany]

whatever it is, its freakin cool!
i have an encrusting monti growing on the side of my clam, didn't get the chance to see if it was alive or not, will check tonight though!

[j_chu]

looks like tunicates to me bro... anyhow, great clams! wish i could get a hold of brightly colored maximas for my tank..

[saltycreefer]

Colonial tunicates. They're cool.

[mbbuna]

i think the mystery encrusting object is a Botryllus

http://www.edge-of-reef.com/tunicati...otryllusen.htm

[jmaneyapanda]

ezcompany- here is something to consider about your claim- water is intensively reflective. So it may only take about 15 minutes for the sun to rise, but it is quite horizontal to the plane of the ocean. So a vast majority of the light is reflected and refracted. At "high noon", the sun is perpendicular to the water, and the light penetrates severely. Then is wanes again. So, unless our lighting system rotate through the space above the water (which some of us may have), we are not replicating nature in that aspect. So artificial dawn and dusk are more natural than suspected.

Cool tunicates Mbbuna. Something to think about with hitchhikers- good or bad. I scrub them all off- regardless of demeanor. Lets say these tunicates are completely harmless to the clam- but what feed on them? And will that activity bother, harm, stress, or even kill the clam? I once bought a clam with wild tunicate and sponge growth on the shell. First is was the inverts in the tank, then the fish, which worked over the hitchhikers so much, the clam died quickly for the constant negative stimulation. I wont make that mistake again. I do allow existing things in my tank to populate the shell, though, as the other animals usually have a previous and larger source, if they should choose to pick.

[ezcompany]

hmmm. i need to dig up the read, it was an advanced aquarist article, and the point on the 15 minute wasn't where the sun was positioned but actual PAR values on the corals if i remember correctly. Early morning PAR values were only a few notches lower than midday noon PAR values. Let me see if i can find the article.

[shari]

You boys have many of us at the lab in total bewilderment.

MBBUNA, Panda....please dont stop

[Giovanni]

jmaneyapanda

What is the name of that store in Atlanta? I may stop there on my way to FL next time.