[MatthewR]

I have a questions about clams. I am thinking of adding some clams in to my refugium when I finally get it built. I have heard alot of different things about clams. I even read somewhere that, a guy put on from the gocery store in there?? But I have a question about coquina clams?? I can't find too much about them on the internet. D. variabilis species. I was reading one of the sites that said they are very good cleaners????

[pogodzib]

The main reason that you can't find very much info about them for home aquarium is because they are from waters that are cooler than reef temperatures and they are not photosynthetic so they typically don't survive very long in a reef tank. Most people keep the crocea, derasa, maxima, or giga clams in their reef tanks under high lighting.

[MatthewR]

pogodzib Re: Clams???

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The main reason that you can't find very much info about them for home aquarium is because they are from waters that are cooler than reef temperatures and they are not photosynthetic so they typically don't survive very long in a reef tank. Most people keep the crocea, derasa, maxima, or giga clams in their reef tanks under high lighting.

What about keeping them underneath tank, in just a sump with some live sand?

[Jay03GT]

Clams are filter feeders. I think what you are trying to do is use them as a sort of natural filter? There are guys that do this, was a big thread on reef central about it. From what I read it was hard to keep them going long term, one guy what rotating them out and feeding them to his CBB that seemed to really like eating them. Other guys were loosing them after a few months, would make a mess of the tank I think if you weren't paying attention when it happened!

[pogodzib]

Yes, there are people that have had some success with keeping bi-halves in sumps for filtering their water, but I wouldn't do it because of their nutrient needs, temperature requirements, and how fast they dissolve, hence contaminating the water, once they die. Both the food requirements and reef tank temps cause them to generally only survive a few months, at most Add that to the fact that you need to feed them to keep them alive, then how much good are they really doing if you want to keep them in order to clean the water since you're actually adding more food into the tank in order to keep them. Refugiums with macro algae work good with less problems. The main 4 types of clams that people keep in their reef tanks not only get their food from filtering water, but also from light. If you still want to try to keep them, make sure that you do plenty of research about them and talk to people on reef forums that have kept them.