Keeping a clam under Coralife 265w PCs

mike35019

mike35019

Member
My 55 reef has been up for a 1 year, and its doing great tons of coraline and growth of my corals. I currently have a branching hammer with 9 heads, a frogspawn, mushrooms, zoas, red brain, chili, pulsing xenia, ricordea. everything is doing great and growing dramtically under these pc lights. i have heard that a dersa clam could do well with my setup. ANy suggestions? Really itching to try a clam! thanks Mike
 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
Originally Posted by Mike35019
http:///forum/post/3181311
My 55 reef has been up for a 1 year, and its doing great tons of coraline and growth of my corals. I currently have a branching hammer with 9 heads, a frogspawn, mushrooms, zoas, red brain, chili, pulsing xenia, ricordea. everything is doing great and growing dramtically under these pc lights. i have heard that a dersa clam could do well with my setup. ANy suggestions? Really itching to try a clam! thanks Mike
Check your calcium level and check it often. Dersa's can survive under PC's, but they need high calcium and can quickly deplete your system of it if you don't stay on top of it.
For the record, I have a Maxima under PC's (25watt 10K daylight and 25watt 460 actinic in a 14G) and it's doing quite well, but my calcium level is fairly high and I dose with a two part Calcium/Buffer mixture.
 
mike35019

mike35019

Member
So if i tried a dersa, i would have to either add a calcium supplement or buffer? How often? The last thing i want to do is knock my tank of whack b/c a clam is taking all the calcium???
 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
Originally Posted by Mike35019
http:///forum/post/3181527
So if i tried a dersa, i would have to either add a calcium supplement or buffer? How often? The last thing i want to do is knock my tank of whack b/c a clam is taking all the calcium???
Well, my tank is only a 14G so I don't dose hard. I add about 1/3 the amount that's recommended on the bottle and I do a weekly water change (20%). It depends on how much other calcium suckers you have in your system. My tank is on the newer side, it was a reef, then a QT, now a reef again so I had some calcium issues so I've been dosing. I don't think I will have to forever. My 155 doesn't get dosed very much and we have SPS in there. I'll be adding a clam to that tank very soon, so that will give a good gauge as to how much calcium the clam really uses.
 
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