Maxima Clam Need Help

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tntfish

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
251
well i gat this clam tonight for free because my friends father is getting rid of his tank i've never had one before i acclimated it and i put it in the center of my tank it hasnt really opened up all the way but it hasnt closed up all the way either in his house it was opened like realll wide is it suppose to open all the way like tha? what do you feed these things and special requirments or anything i shoild know?
 
what do you feed these things and special requirments or anything i shoild know?
They don't need to be fed. They get what they need from high intensity lighting (metal halide or T5HO) and pull nutrients from the water column.

Maxima clams are probably the most sensitive and hardest to keep tridacna clam. They need very strong lighting and a very mature system.
 
How big is the clam? Less than about 3 inches and they do require some supplemental feeding. Phytoplankton is good in that regard, but it's best to do it in a bowl outside of the tank.

Opening wide like that is called "gaping" and is a sign of stress. " gaping clam will appear as follows: shell fully open, mantle poorly extended, and inhalant siphon widely stretched."

I found this article that seems pretty good -- Caring For Tridacnid Clams

I've had mine for 3+ years now. It has grown from under 2" to 5"+ sitting on the sand under 150w MH lighting. I did feed it phytoplankton once or twice a week untill it was close to 3".

You need good water conditions too, so please post more information about your tank.
Size
Filtration
LR ? how many pounds
Sand bed? how deep
lighting? how old are the bulbs?
placement of the clam (bottom, top, on sand or on a rock)
all water parameters you can test for
age of your current setup (how long since it was cycled)?
what else is in your tank?
 
Whao lots of questions ok here it goes by the way ( i knew it wasn't suppose to be open al the way like that it just looked weird) water pars
Ammonia-0
pH- 8.0 - 8.1 ishh
Salinity- 1.028
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-20ppm
Calcium- 400ppm
The previous owner was my friends dad he had the tank running for about 5 years i didn't change much except i added a sump i have a protien skimmer in the a uv light ,filter foam over 2sheets of poly filter,carbon and then the blue spicky balls always forget the name of those things its in tha order b the way there is also some live rock in the sump i've had it for almost a year now in juy it will be a whole year so in 4 mnths its a 135 gallon tank idk how many pounds of live rock exactly i know i have a lot of rock though ill post a pic i have the clam on the rock he is at the bottom of the tank but he is huge i just installed a 12bulb T5 nova extreme current fixture i got it for Christmas so fairly new... the sand bed is about 2 inches i know i'm getting more sand soon from the guy who gave me the clam in the tsnk i have alot of corals like i have a kenya tree a few montis i have the hand wave coral a xiena, finger leather,mushrooms, polyps, zoas, branching hammer coral, star polyps,and fish are blue hippo, fox face, powder blue, yellow tang, percula clown, a really old blue damsel, a chocolate tang, a sail fin tang, and my mom brought me a niger trigger it was a baby when she dumped it in there didn't even acclimate it have no idea how it survied i freaked out when i saw it in there but he has not given me any problems had him for almost as long as i've had the tank if anybody want him he is yours free i have never shipped a fish before thought so that might me a lil complicated sally light foot crab, algae bleeny 2 turbo snails, and 4 oyther snails forgot there names they pointy i know he wasnt doing good in that tank so if there is anything i can do to get him back on track or make him feel even a lil better i will do all i can here are some pics.
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img_1076425_2_cd3b04cfa22a49386213748003043085.jpg
 
these are pictures of the tank in dusk mode and also before and after i gat the clam i had to move some stuff around
 
I highly doubt that's a maxima. It looks more like a derasa. Can you get a pick of the side of the shell?
 
MOved a few thing put him on the sand bed mabey he will do better
 
now that i see the pics online i think it is a maxima he has the ridges on the shell
 
Yesss Its definitely a tridacna squamosa wow good stuff well do you think anything is wrong with it is it gaping it was way open in the other tank like both parts of the shell where touching the sand bed in the pictures i see on here they ll lokk pretty open but not as open as the open i have
 
I was going to suggest a squamosa also. My squamosa of 4 yrs recently died but your`s looks pretty much like one.
 
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