Clams not opening up much
 

Not sure what could be wrong with my Clams. I have 2 Maxima clams and they are both about 1.5". I checked my water and everything is as follows.

PH 8.25
Salt 1.025
Nitrite 0
Nitrate <5 ppm
Ammonia 0
Calcium 400
Mag 1380
Alk 9.5
Phos <.3

They are located at the bottom of my tank. Not sure if maybe I should move them up? Also I feed the tank phyto feast once a week. Any ideas would be appreciated.

how long have you had them in your tank and what is your lighting type / photo period?

Without knowing that, I would say you could bump your calcium up a bit, but don't think a reading of 400 would cause what you're seeing

I have had them for about a month. When I got them they were opening up pretty well. I have Panarama Pro LED 4 modules (2 actinic, 2 12000K/actinic). They are on full 6 hours a day and actinic for an additional 2 hours. Have a fuge that is on 16 hours.

When I changed over from my biocube 8 gallon under an 80 watt MH at 20k to my 12 gallon cadlights with stock led lighting, my clam did fine for a few weeks then started to not open as much. I gave it to a buddy after I realized it wasn't doing well but before I thought to put the metal halide over the 12 gallon ha. I now have a 72 watt diy led kit, and have 2 happy, healthy clams (crocea and derasa). How big is your tank? I'm not real familiar with those lights you have, but depending on the size of the tank and my own experience with my clam not happy with less than desirable lighting, I may start there.

hth

If the lights have a good reputation, I would up your light cycle a bit to get the clams more light

Hopefully this will help. I decided to move them closer to the light and see what happens. The directions say to put the maxmimas pretty high up.

http://www.ecoxotic.com/aquarium-led...ro-module.html

19 watts over 12 lights = about 1.6 watts per led. When I took the led plunge, I read up a lot and heard that 1 watt led's don't have the depth penetration that 3 watt led's do. i.e. if they're on your sandbed, they may not be getting enough light. How deep is your tank?

Tank is 22" high. The lights are about 4-6 inches above the water. I moved the clams to about middle of the tank. I also bumped the tank to 10 hours on and the huge to 16 hours. Hopefully that will help.

Yeah that seems pretty deep for those led's. Just my opinion. I would move them up, but ramp up the light cycle time slowly, i.e. over the course of a week or two. Moving them up and increasing the lighting cycle by 4 hours may shock them if the lights have any power

What do you feed your clams? I am trying to get some good feeding. I was going to get a good spot feeder also. Thanks

Yeah too far down in the tank. I feed mine spirulina powder. Don't spot feed them. You run the chance of clogging up their gills.

Mine feed on whatever I feed my sps. Marine snow, rotifeast, brightwell aquatics zooplanktos-m, and aqua vitro fuel for reefs on rotation. I also do spot feed zooplex from time to time, but the size of the zooplankton is small. Let us know if moving the clams up in the tanks helps at all - if they don't start to open up more soon and you want to keep them, id consider having someone hold them for you until you upgrade your lighting

Put it higher in your tank and make sure the calcium is stable 450/500