grassi Posted October 3, 2010 Author Share Posted October 3, 2010 Just tested the water. Yesterday I did a 30g water change. Ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, phosphates: 0 Calcium: 520 Mg: 1400 Alk: 2,5 meq/l Ph: 8,2 Temp: 79,1 Orp: 441 Salinity: 1025 Seems that with 15% wc weekly and kalk I can keep up without dosing. I'm still dosing traces. The clam is looking good and wide open. I had to put a "lid" on top of it because many times I've found half of a gallon on the floor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeFit Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 very nice, how are your other corals doing? are they growing the same rate and what traces are you dosing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted October 3, 2010 Author Share Posted October 3, 2010 All seems go grow well from what I can tell. The only coral I'm taking note of is the sps grow out ponape, which is still growing well. I noticed they slowed down a little, but I can't tell if it is the clam or just some seasonal variation. Frank told me that sps started to grow out more after we removed the clam. I'm dosing kent trace and iodine (Lugol). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted October 9, 2010 Author Share Posted October 9, 2010 So.... tank porn... the clam is spawning. Just a lot of free food for my corals or I should worry? I set up the skimmer on the wet side and put some fresh carbon. I hope this is not gonna start a chain reaction with the other clams I have Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted October 9, 2010 Author Share Posted October 9, 2010 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeFit Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 At least you can still see in the tank, when my nem spawned the tank was smoke white for about 12 hours even with a 60 gallon water change. I had no adverse effects from it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moto826 Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 now thats cool Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted October 9, 2010 Author Share Posted October 9, 2010 Video: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeFit Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 [language filter] that's a huge clam! I'm beginning to think it's going to be hard to take it away from you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted October 9, 2010 Author Share Posted October 9, 2010 [language filter] that's a huge clam! I'm beginning to think it's going to be hard to take it away from you. No no.. it is not gonna be difficult lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted October 9, 2010 Author Share Posted October 9, 2010 So, after a couple of consultations it could be a good event or a bad one. It could be stress. Or it could be that something in the tank triggered the spawning, like the hundreds of little snails spawning that I have in the tank. Parameters are stable, the only change being the skimmer air intake moved outside. This could have triggered it too (more oxygen in the solution). In fact they use Hydrogen peroxide to induce clams to spawning. If if is stress we will see soon. The animal will eventually die :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted October 13, 2010 Author Share Posted October 13, 2010 Everything still look good so far. Yesterday the skimmer went crazy and did a 5 gallon of skimmate in a few hours. I reintegrated saltwater and then did another water change. Ammonia and nitrites are fine. I have 2 skimmers running now. I guess that was the moment when the eggs died all together. The clam is now expelling some zooxanthellae (looks like fish poo) which is normal. I did some researches and discovered that Gigas do spawn in fall and this make sense. Also, it is possible the self fertilization, so who knows I also discovered that cross-fertilization between different species can occur. Gigas with derasa. I don't have any derasa :( The zooxanthellae that the clam is expelling can be cultured to feed baby clams. No idea about how. I'll have to check out if we have some books about clams in the members book library Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stylaster Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 A long time ago.... (early 90's) i was working on trying to get clams to breed in enclosed systems. Getting them to spawn was no problem. Easiest way is to induce stress. Leave the clam out of water for couple hours, increase tank temp, change salinity. I used the leave clam out of water in a warm area (didnt get hotter then 85 degs or so) Toss the clam back in, usually in about an hour it would spawn. The trick is getting the spats to settle out. I did have some luck and got them to the point of 1-2mm baby clams, but the next trick is introducing zooanthalae to the water (ie sacrifice a clam by tossing mantle into a blender and purree) I tried several times but no success, ended up loosing the babies after about a month. I think i just didnt have enough nutrients in the water for them to filter feed. They did successfully absorb the algae, but they still need a lot of fine food till they get 2-3" in size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted October 13, 2010 Author Share Posted October 13, 2010 This is interesting! Time to try again Roy Now the tanks water conditions and the technology can help. I contacted some people and they told me they use hydrogen peroxide to induce spawning, even if I was reading that many other do still use the "dry" method (I think it was Sprung, not sure...). You squirt some of it and the clam will spawn in a while. As for the zooxanthellae (which is the most complicated word I have ever seen) I can get it from what mom clam usually spit after spawning. The amount of zooxanthellae that this giant clam can produce is huge. I just don't know how to cultivate it. I have the strain, but need info about how to keep it alive. I know it is probably impossible, but just to arrive at the point you achieved and been able to see a 2mm baby would give me a lot of satisfaction and it is worth the try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted October 13, 2010 Author Share Posted October 13, 2010 Btw, it is amazing how you were already trying to grow clams 20 years ago while I was still playing with discus lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stylaster Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 too much free time lol I would be more then happy to help, as you said there is a lot of new tech and info now. There is a guy up in Tacoma area that was trying this also at the same time i was, i will see if i can get a hold of him again As for spawning i haven't heard of hydrogen peroxide but they do inject seratonin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stylaster Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 Check this out alex for clam farming info from Gerald Heslinga http://www.youtube.com/user/GeraldHeslinga#p/a/u/0/bLQHqamR-UA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandinga Posted October 26, 2010 Share Posted October 26, 2010 update on Luigi? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeFit Posted October 26, 2010 Share Posted October 26, 2010 update on Luigi? little to his/her surprise it ended up becoming grassi's "Secret Lab" and a subject for an extensive project. LOL Go to bed comfy in a nice sand bed one night and wake up in a stretcher going to the surgery center. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted October 27, 2010 Author Share Posted October 27, 2010 Luigi is doing great: growing the mantle to donate some zooxantellae lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted November 5, 2010 Author Share Posted November 5, 2010 A couple of updates: Today Reefit drop off an IP webcam. One of those that you can control it from remote. I'm in the process of setting it up, so soon there will be a webcam you can move to see the clam hotel. Also I was able to catch some of that string tissue that the clam is expelling every once in a while. I put it under the scope and from what I can tell it is zooxanthellae. Small rounded cells moving around. I compared with some pics online and they look pretty much the same. The clam was showing some white spots and the tank is growing some algae, so we changed the bulb. We will see in a few days if it is gonna be better. The other tanks in the system are doing great and parameters are stable and in the range we want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 The Clam Cam is on. http://clams.dyndns.org/ user: guest Pw: guest You can move it to watch the other tanks as well. It has the night vision feature, even if it seems not working properly sometimes. Lights are gonna be on between 5pm and 1am. It will be on at night. It's online today for testing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeFit Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 There is also a max users. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 Does it give you an error? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 It is working but it looking up at something... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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