Check out the growth rate of my Gigas clam

[Anonymous]

You may remember this clam from this thread. This clam didn't show any new growth in the first month or two, then bam! All that new growth you see in the pic below since then. Looks like 3/4" to 1" of new growh in just 3 or 4 months! And now I have a calcium reactor. :mrgreen:

Looks like I better pick up the pace on that new 300, huh? :mrgreen:

Life is good! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Louey

ps: :mrgreen:

 

[Anonymous]

8O Wow, lou, nice clams ya got there!

 

[Minh Nguyen]

My 5 year old T. gigas is pushing 24 inches.
Minh

 

[Lynn]

Wow Louey! I think you better skip the 300 and go for the 500

 

[Modo]

Louey,
Nice clams! I'm glad to see that Gigas pulled through from the post you linked to. That did not look good at all. Congrats on a healthy tank! It will be interesting to see if the growth changes with the new reactor.

My 5 year old T. gigas is pushing 24 inches.

8O

Minh do you have pics of these beast?

 

[toptank]

Louey,

Yes that is a lot of new growth. Sucken up that CA.

Barry

 

[texman]

Yes that is a lot of new growth. Sucken up that CA.

Interesting point Barry!

Minh and Louey, are you having any problems maintaining your Ca and Alkalinity. I have 2 gigas clams from Barry and they are about 12" and 10" (they have gained 4-5" in 6 months) I am pumping calcium and buffer into my tank like crazy, but cannot keep my calcium above 300 and Alk above 8. I have a large Ca reactor and pump kalkwasser as topoff, in addidtion to adding large amounts of B-ionic. I also have a lot of SPS corals, but do not understand where all the calcium carbonate is going!

 

[Minh Nguyen]

I got a 4 chambers home built Ca reactor 8X24 inches. It have two CO2 recovering loop. My Ca reactor does not waste any CO2. I feed it a stream of CO2 too fast to count and high rate of low rate (I never measure it) I can keep my Ca to 500 wiht alkalinity of 4.5 mEq. I use up a 20 pound CO2 every 2-3 months. Every 3 months or so, I added about 8 inches or reactor media into the Ca reactor. If I turn my Ca reactor off over night, the Ca drop from 500 to about 250. Everything just stop growing at this level and the Ca does not drop below this.
The reason I have a 4 chambers reactor is because with 3 chambers, I was not able to keep my Ca up at 400, so I added another chamber with it's own pump and CO2 recovering loop, and crank up the CO2 and the flow.
I do have essentially all SPS in my 450g tank with 19 clams. Several clams at 6-8 inches and one Gigas that is 22 inches.
I also have a Kalk reactor. All my top-off water is saturated Kalk water.
BTW, I just took picture of my Gigas. I will have to develope it and will post picture of it maybe next week.

Minh

 

[Anonymous]

Texman,

I added my reactor a couple of weeks ago. Before that, I was adding 90 ml of each component of B-Ionic. I also used 2 tsp/G of kalk for all makeup water, about 3/4 GPD. Keep in mind that my tank is only 75G, so that is quite a bit of calcium and alk. I was able to maintian ca at 480 ppm and alk around 2.8 meq/.l.

Since I added the reactor, the ca remains around or above 480 ppm and I have seen the alk as high as 3.8 meq/l. The last time I measured the alk had dropped to 2.74 meq/l. I attribute that drop to the fact that I did a 25% WC the day before and I don't believe that ASW has high alk.

Also keep in mind that I built my new reactor with my new 300G that I am planning. I built the reactor large enough to handle the new tank once it is installed. The reactor has a 22" tall 6" diameter tube that easily holds 12 - 14 pound of media. I barely using any co2 at this point and my throughput is a mere trickle. But I am also still dailing the reactor in a bit.

Maybe you should post your problem in the chemist forum. Perhaps Randy Holmes Farley and Craig Bingham could offer a solution to your problem.

Louey

 

[L.Foley]

I've also got a gigas in my home tank, that I've had 5.5 years and it has grown from 3" to 18" in that time.

Leland Foley

 

[Minh Nguyen]

Texman,
You tank just use too much Ca and CO3 and your Ca reactor just not able to keep up with it.
You need a very efficient Ca reactor. Most of the reactors on the market are not really efficient in use CO2. Most of the model out there put the CO2 into the reactor before the pump. If the CO2 is not completly disolved, it will go out with the reactor out-put and is lost. Because this reason, it really does not mater how much CO2 one pump into the reactor, the output will never have a pH of 6.5 and saturated with Ca and Carbonate.
I built multiple Ca reactors over the years and learn a great deal doing it. There are severl things you can do to make the reactor much more efficient in Ca and CO3 output.
1. there must be a mechanism to retake CO2 not disolved and refeed it to the pump.
2. CO2 must be fed to the pump in very small bubbles. This will greatly enhance the ability of the pump to tear them up even more and mix it into the water.

Minh Nguyen

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, the reactor effluent ph is the key. I can easily get my reactor ph even below 6.5 with minimal co2.

Louey

 

[liquid]

Very nice!

Shane

 

[reefland]

Great growth. You're doing something right.

My derasa did that when I hooked up a reactor. Put on just under 3/4 inch of new shell in under 2 months.

http://www.rl180reef.com/pages/clams/clam05.htm

Slowed down a bit afterwards. Seemed to be growing more mass than size. They get pretty darn heavy.

 

[Minh Nguyen]

Great growth. You're doing something right.

My derasa did that when I hooked up a reactor. Put on just under 3/4 inch of new shell in under 2 months.

http://www.rl180reef.com/pages/clams/clam05.htm

Slowed down a bit afterwards. Seemed to be growing more mass than size. They get pretty darn heavy.

Richard,
How big is the Derasa now?
Minh Nguyen

 

[reefland]

How big is the Derasa now?

9 inches long, 5 inches high about. Can't tell how wide it is. I don't handle them much anymore. They've reached the size where you worry about the shells seperating.