Diary of my LiL 16 Gallon Nano(Intense)

[blackheart]

Originally posted by 10" Red Devil
Last time I checked which was pretty recently this is not true at all. In fact for baby clams that are under 3" which this most certainly is, the phyto dip is definitely necessary. They get 90% or more of their nutritional needs from filter feeding at this stage. Check out Daniel Knops book. There is a website dedicated to giant clams which I cannot remember the name of right now.

I like the tank, but worry your doing sps far too soon. There are lots of ups and downs that take place in a new tank that will bleach or brown sps. It is a good idea to wait at least a year before trying sps. I wish you luck though. This is coming from someone who has kept sps in a 20gallon long nano for 5+ years and only recently decided to do a mixed reef, but I was successful and had very colorful sps with good growth.

I agree with all this except the time frame. The clam must be feed maybe twice a week and the light will be suplimental untill it reach 2.5 inches or so.

I also agree the you are putting SPS in the tank way to soon, the clam as well for that matter. You are working out every little thing in your set up but you are gonna add all that suff in hurry? It just doesnt seem like your style. You dont need to wait a year to put in sps but you should wait at least a month or two to get the bugs out, (temp, cycle, dosing). You dont want to spend your first year with this tank trying to get color back into your sps.

Again it is your tank and you have done a great job with it so far, and i know you have already thought of all this but i figure i would state what i was thinking. Just remember your tank is small (ish) and you really need to think hard about what goes in there because you only have so much room (it will fill fast).

Sorry to put a damper, i love this thread keep it up and great pics!!!

[Rosseau]

Nice looking clam in the second pic.


Good stuff...

[blackheart]

I see you addressed most of what i said (I figured you knew what you where doing )

Anyway, great pics those duncans look really nice.

[mr pink floyd]

insane, i pm'ed mbbuna because yesterday i brought home a baby maxima from puppy center, and this thread made me second guess myself, and he said clams can be supported by their mantles no matter of the size. all feeding would do would be the gills taking phyto and turning it into phosphate and nitrate, which is what the zoox would use anyways, so doing a phyto dip every other day will surely stress out the clam, they dont like to be moved. but like i said before, adding it to the tank wouldnt hurt.


btw, cant wait to see this fileld up, youre doing a great job!

[pbukow]

Very good choice for the only lps in the tank btw. That clam is going to be very awesome as it gets older. Good lookin so far though, can't wait to see more progress, especially since my next tank will be almost the exact same size.

[SaltwaterChris]

Looking good I want a pair of picasso also for my tank when I get it going. I can't belive how small your clam is it's awesome

[10" Red Devil]

Well I think your doing a good job! Captive raised is definitely the key to success with sps from my experience.

[10" Red Devil]

Oh and here is the website I was talking about on Giant Clams:

http://www.clamsdirect.com/forum/vie...d117958d9cca27

Pretty much the experts on Giant clams and they all support the feeding of a clam under 3"

I will try and research some articles or reference some literature.

[InsaneClownFish]

blackheart- Thanks I love the way the Duncans look in the new tank. Yes, I'm possibly jumping the gun with the SPS. Never feel bad about speaking your mind here, because I welcome any input and help I can get.

Rosseau- That's the same clam in both pics. It never ceases to amaze me the drastic difference in color from the side vs. the top with clams.

mr pink floyd- I've pm'd mbbuna for some more input. Thanks for the encouragement!

pbukow- Duncans keep to themselves, are hardy, and have the most amazing green color under actinics- definately a perfect compliment, because I'm not ready to frag them again. The clam is definately a beaut. Hopefully I'll have time to treat the quarantine with Interceptor tonight, and then acclimated the SPS frags to the new system. I'm trying to keep up with pics at least every other day!

SaltwaterChris- The Picassos may not be available, and if they are, they're asking too much $$ for them right now. I might actually do an Onyx and a naked clown...now there's some contrast...

10" Red Devil- I've been pretty adamant about doing everything aquaculture, and I'm also trying to keep from within the CTARS club pool of SPS. Not only does this promote multiple generations of captive grown SPS, saves the reef, but frags from fellow club members are definately the most cost effective way of doing a reef. Alot of the guys are doing some really exotic stuff too. If I do purchase elsewhere, it might often be with fellow reefers so that we can propogate and frag the colonies ourselves. Plus, fellow reefers are fairly generous if you are a thoughful and personable reefer. They're helpful with getting you on your feet if you have something disastrous happen. I personally have never purchased from Barry at clamsdirect, but from what I understand he's one of the best; and his insights on clam keeping should be regarded closely! I peek at their site all the time.

[mr pink floyd]

insane, i have tons of green w/ purple rim cap floating around. Usually when i break a piece or something, i bring it to puppy center for credit give me a few weeks to grow it back and i can get you a good sized frag, also i might consider fragging my ORA green birdnest soon

yea, mbbuna will explain it all to you, he wrote me 2 PMs full of info and links, lot of good stuff in there, he breaks it down pretty easy to understand too. I also need to frag my green digi, maybe a brown/ purple tip, not the prettiest but it grows fast and actually gives a nice look of depth. Just LMK

[InsaneClownFish]

Mike, I'm being really careful about what I put in my tank. You have great stuff, but nothing that I'm interested in. In my old reef, I put in way too much green, or stuff that ended up turning green- so I'm avoiding all greens at all cost.. The only ones going in are the Green hairy milli from Jas and the Duncans. I must be metro because I really want lots of pink and baby blue shades... I'm going for a particular look, and since I have very limited space I need to take in only what I can care for. I appreciate the offer though!

...and now for the Monti caps. I've thought about keeping a cap, but I'm concerned about the space it may take up, and I'm not sure if I want the cap at all....I think I might keep each of the four points of rock acros. So if I do that, I'll be doing a 100% acropid tank which I think is pretty cool....plus it makes sense for a small tank...trying to limit myself early on....what do you think?

[mr pink floyd]

makes a ton of sense, i know exactly how you feel. I put in 3 green corals, now theyre gigantic. Finally i was able to frag things enough to separate them, and my tank looks alot better now the colors are distributed. As for blues and pinks id love to help, but dont want to frag my blue tort, too darn awesome right now.

i think its a great idea youre putting this much thought into your corals, this tank is going to be awesome, glad i started tagging along

[PL-Reef]

all day and no pics.... this is crap! get off your butt and lets see some more of that tank BRO!

[mbbuna]

this is a copy and past of what i sent to MPF

yes, as long as they have plenty of light and enough dissolved nutrients in the water they will do just fine.

heres something i wrote a little while back

its an old myth that clams under X" need to filter feed.

clams are not dependent on filter feeding phyto. they are primarily photosynthetic and can sustain themselves on the food provided by there zooxanthellae, through light alone. clams will extract dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus from the water and pass onto there zoox and then the zoox gives the clam sugars as food. clams will filter phyto (and bacteria and zooplankton) but when they do this all they are doing is extracting the same N & P and passing it to the zoox.

one of the arguments for feeding clams is that clams mantles are not fully developed untill they are 4" in length. this is completely false. clams mantles are fully developed and full of zoox within week of metamorphosis. another one is that clams mantles are not large enough to house enough zoox to support the clam untill its 4", false again. the size of a clams mantle is proportionate to the size of the clam through out its life.

another argument some people have for feeding phyto is that clams have a fully functioning digestive system and that if they didn't need to feed they wouldn't have this. so lets look at this. clams gills are multifunctional, they are use for respiration and capturing particulate matter. they can get rid of the gills or they wouldn't be able to breath , clams also constantly replenish there zoox, they use their gills to do this.

the stomach is connected to the zooxanthellae tubular system (where the zoox live) the stomach passes new zoox from the gills to the ZTS , processes the sugars the zoox make (to feed the clam) and pass old, dead and un-viable zoox to the anus.

even though the digestive system isnt needed for filtering phyto, it is still used as a basic function of the clam.

if you want to feed your clams phyto, go ahead. but dont think that they will die if you dont. as long as you have strong light and N & P (fish pee and poo) in the water the clam will do just fine !

heres a few snipits from research papers to back up what i say.

enjoy


From klumpp and lucas 94

It is now established that photosynthates fixed by
symbiotic zooxanthellae are able to provide sufficient
energy to cover at least the metabolic needs of Tridacna
gigas (Fisher et al. 1985, Mingoa 1988, Klumpp
et al. 1992), T squamosa (Trench et al. 1981), T. derasa
and T. tevoroa (Klumpp & Lucas 1994

Contribution of symbiotic algae to
host respiratory requirements

The absolute amounts of carbon translocated daily by the zooxanthellae to the host (TP in Table 4) follow similar patterns of variation with size and species of clam described for P, That IS, in the smaller slze categones (0 1 to 10 g tissue weight) Trldacna gJgas has a considerable
nutritional advantage over the other 3 species, gaining 2 to 20 t~mes more energy in the form of photosynthates TP was similar in the 3 species
whlch attain 100 g In all 4 specles and size categories of clam TP was well in excess of host respiratory needs (RH in Table 4) Calculation of the percent contnbution of zooxanthellae to the host's daily carbon requirements for routine respiration (l e CZAR = (TPIRH)lOO)a, s
glven in Table 4 shows that symbiotic algae were capable of provldlng 2 to 4 times more carbon than requlred by the
host for respiration CZAR ~ncreased with clam size in all species, except in H h~ppopus, which had a comparatively
high and more constant CZAR of -340% The lowest CZAR value was
186 % in the smallest T squamosa

This study actually indicates that clams may need to acquire additional nutrients through filter feeding as they grow larger. However there zoox through photosynthesis can still provide them with at least 2x there CE needs


this study was done to determine how clams acquired there zoox and what they did with them. two sets of clams were used, one was given zoox the other was not. they were both kept in micro filtered water and not allowed to receive any particulate. the only particulate that one set received was its initial dose of symbiotic zoox. these are very tiny clams, the kind everyone says cant live through photosynthesis alone. they did just fine

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00...B...size=LARGE

Fatherree 2006

"let's take a look at some CZAR and CZARG values for some small to clear up any possible confusion. the smallest clams offered for sale to hobbyists are usually in the 2.5 range, but far more "small clams" are in the 3.8 to 5cm range. keep this in mind when you see the CZAR and CZARG numbers going up.

Mingoa (1988) found that 1.75cm gigas specimens (smaller than what you can buy) had an average CZAR values of only 92% under bright sunlight. close, but not quite enough C/E from the zooxanthellae for basic maintenance. however that was in 1988 and Mingoa, using unpublished data from Griffiths, had chosen a translocation value of 32%. so you can see the same thing happening for these little clams. change the translocation value to 95% and the CZAR values will triple to 273%.

in addition, Fischer et al. (1985) reported a CZAR value for gigas (using a transference value of 95%) of 149% for 1cm specimen, 259% for a 1.15cm specimen, and 318% for a 1.55cm specimen. all smaller then what you can buy. then, Klumpp&Lucas (1994) found CZAR to be as high as 178% for 2.2cm derasa and 2cm tevoroas, with CZARG values of 140% for both, while data from Klumpp&Griffiths (1994) shows a CZAR of 265% and CZARG of 191% for 4.2cm gigas, 233% and 206% for 2.4cm crocea, 186% and 118% for 4.2cm squamosa, and 300% for 4cm hippopus"

so according to that they are getting C/E from photosynthesis just fine.

[cerreta]

Nice work buna

[mbbuna]

people always bring up this article as for the need to feed clams. so before anyone does i will. http://www.dtplankton.com/articles/necessity.html


that article written by Dr. Shimek was commissioned by DT's. how much money do you think DT's would have paid him if the conclusion was that clams are not dependent on phyto? the references used are old and out dated. some of the claims made in it are completely false and show either sloppy research by the author, or selective research to come to a desired conclusion.

whats the magic # in that article? 4" i think. A crocea at its fastest growth rate, grows about 3/4" per your. so it would take a crocea at least 5.33 years to get to 4". Gigas has an average growth rate of about 3" per year, and at its fastest growth almost 4.5" per year. so it can achieve the magic 4" in one year. why more then 5 years for crocea and barly 1 year for gigas to fully develop there mantles or house enough zoox to support the clam? it doesnt make any sense. if its going to take clams so long to be able to use zoox for photosynthesis why do the start collecting them between 2 and 4 weeks after fertilization while there still pediveligers? only to wait 1 to 5 years to see the benefit.

lets look at just crocea for a minute. i think everyone would agree that crocea is considered to be the most light demanding of all the clams. they are most commonly found in very shallow water of just a few feet. they can be sporadically found down to about 20', no more. and we all know that clams are broadcast spawners. there eggs and sperm are at the mercy of the currents for up to a month then settle out. they have no control where they settle and im sure that many more larva settle deeper then 20' then that do. if they are so dependent on filtering phyto how come there aren't a bunch of small croceas under 4" at 30', 40', 50' deep? there's plenty of phyto down there for them. they should be able to do just fine down there filtering away untill the magic 4" comes along and then they would just die.

[InsaneClownFish]

mr pink flyod- I'm glad you're following my logic, because I can't even follow my logic sometimes! Great to have you here!

PL-Reef- All day and no pics ehh? At least I have pics of stuff besides a box on my front porch and a dog in my tank!

mbbuna- Thanks so much for chiming in! Fascinating reads. Your insight and experience is invaluable. So hmmm I guess I'll just supplementally feed the tank every so often with the Phyto and not stress over it.

As I've already discussed, I'm pretty set on taking a threefold approach of Lugol's, Revive, and Interceptor for all new SPS frags regardless of their condition.

I used a cocktail muddler to smash the tablet- there's plenty left over for the next use.

I mixed the interceptor in a cup of quaratine water and added it to the container below. Since they need to bath for around an hour, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and acclimate them at the same time. These are all the frags that have been sitting in my quarantine for the last few days after a Lugols and Revive treatment.

[pbukow]

What is that "intercepter" stuff for again and how would a reefer go about getting some of it?

[InsaneClownFish]

pbukow- Interceptor is a heart worm medication for dogs. However, it kills athropods associated with "mange" in dogs as well. These athropods are in the same family as the Acropora eating red bugs. Here's a great article on melev's site: http://www.melevsreef.com/redbugs.html

Normally, you need a vet's prescription. Here's the no questions asked site: www.petmedstore.com

[pbukow]

Good lookin out Mr. Insane, how much of that stuff did you actually use in your dip? Is there a ratio that you follow?

[cerreta]

Those prices are much less than what I paid from the vet office.

Many vets will prescribe Interceptor for your corals, especially if you can find a vet that treats fish. The vet I found insisted on examining the pet before prescribing, so I invited him to make a house call.

He laughed and said come by and get the med and sign a waiver stating the office is not responsible for any misuse of the medication.

[cerreta]

pbukow, there is a treatment guideline to follow outlined in The Reef Aquarium Volume 3, by Sprung and Delbeek. It requires several days of low days treatment.

If you are using it as a pretretment with no visible red bugs, than a one time dose should be sufficient.

[pbukow]

The Reef Aquarium Vol 3, Got it, thanks cerreta. Btw, how is the filtration coming along in your tank. Any cheato in the fuge and has the euro reef started pullin any nasty gunk yet?

[10" Red Devil]

mbbuna,

Great post! Thanks for the articles. It can't have been easy digging up those articles! I appreciate the time you took!

Nice to know we don't have to phyto dip our clams. What a pita it is anyway!

OP,

Sorry if I misinformed you, but I stand corrected. I guess it just goes to show, don't always believe everything you read or that conventional wisdom tells you is true.

[InsaneClownFish]

pbukow- According to Melev's site, 1 tablet treats about 400 gallons. About 1/5th tablet for a one time dose is a good estimate. I mixed about 1/6th to 1/5th pill...I kinda eyed it based on melev's use of one salifert spoonful for 1.5 gallons, into a little less than a gallon of water.

From what I understand Stan has never had any problems with red bugs or flatworms of anytype, but I will say there was clear dead 'matter' in the water afterwards. I didn't use a microscope or a magnifying glass to inspect it, but like I said, it got something whether noxious or not. The frags themselves didn't seem stressed at all.

There's no cheato in the sump and the Euroreef has been running since day one and has only pulled out a little less than a centimeter of green water from the phyto and some red dust from the clay.

cerreta- Cheap is good..

I took this pic with all the lights out using the flash. I kinda like it: