Earliest You Introduced a clam

I got my first one last week, tank is 4 months old. He is up on a rock now, not on the gravel.

 

yeah i see most are less then 6months...most people recommend a well established tank of at least 6 months for a clam..and yet most put them in before this...is it hit or miss luck? is it we under estimate the hardiness of them or what is it?

 

I have put corals and Clams in tanks a week after set up and its been fine.

 

The thing with clams is they take a long time to show signs of detrimental health from poor feeding or tank conditions. So what may seem like is a healthy clam may not actually be a healthy clam. I added one after about 8 months, a crocea. It seems to be doing fine, excellent mantle extension and coloration, but only time will tell.

 

Well the ones I have put in right away are still alive and doing well after a couple years.

 

I believe you are telling the truth - but how did you do it? I am sure that info would be well received on a forum, aye? Speak up!

 

No actually I havnt spent anytime on forums till now. Actually it all comes pretty much from experience. Best way to learn is to mess up yourself. HAHA

 

In some instances yes, i will agree with this philosophy but not in this hobby. I think it's the responsibility of the tank owner to research what he's getting and to make sure he has the ability to care for it. I don't think it's right for someone to go buy something and to keep having said fish or coral die just so they can gain knowledge about how to care for it.

 

I Agree. Hopefully everyone can save their livestock and do things right without experimentation, by learning from my "experience" haha. I rather them not kill it that way we can rely less on plucking things from the ocean by keeping the stuff we have alive in our tanks.

 

This is one of my pet peeves in the hobby, arbitrary periods of time that the majority of people will say you can or can't put something into your tank. Now, I'm not promoting to be careless or reckless when adding certain types of livestock, but having a set period of time and promoting that to others when they ask is not promoting education and furtherance of the hobby.

I say this b/c I added my crocea clam at about the 6 week mark, not 6 weeks after the cycle, but after my tank had cycled and the water parameters showed no ammonia or nitrite, which took about 4 weeks, I added him two weeks after that. Now, everybody told me you can't do that, your tank's not mature enough, the clam will die etc. (Keep in mind that info was coming from some people who did not own a clam or never owned a clam). I researched the needs of clams, I took into consideration people's advice and I took the health of my current livestock into account in my determination. Obviously I decided to buy a clam. I've had it in my tank for nearly 2 years now and it's doing very well. It's actually turned out to be one of my hardier livestock.

I've done the same thing with sps. People say that you need to wait 6 or 9 months or even a year before adding sps, but IMO and IME that's not true, at least not all of the time. I added a purple digitata to my tank after about 2 months and it did great. Now again, I did my research, tested my parameters and checked the overall health of the tank first. I didn't just throw it in there and hope for the best.

I'm sure other people have had different experiences and my advice or what I did may be considered negligent, but it worked for me, and others I know of. We have many claims or theories in this hobby that many people treat as fact. (Clams can't be kept under PC lighting, Anemones can't be added until at least 9 months, sps can't be added to a newer tank etc.) These may or may not be true, and IMO, will greatly depend on each person and their tank. I understand that I've probably gone outside the scope of this thread's subject, but I feel strongly about this idea. I don't mean to imply that anyone who gives this information is ill informed. I just want people to think before they pass on information that they believe to be true and consider their own experiences and research. In this way, our cummulative knowledge will be able to move forward and not simply revolve around what we believe to be truths.