My First Coral and Clam

[George Monnat Jr]

Hi all,

I just went to Fishy Business to get SW and RODI refills, and ended up "accidentally" buying my first coral and clam. Probably because my wife was with me to pick them out - that doesn't happen often. I'm a little anxious.

Anyways, people have been telling me for awhile that my success with BTAs probably means I can start with some simple coral. I know my lights are good enough. My immediate problem is I'm not sure where to put them.

I got a Candy Cane, a Metallic Orange Mushroom and a very small (2" or a little less) Maxima Clam. The corals are small, and the clam has been with Shane for 2 months.

I think these are the preferences for these species, but please let me know if I'm wrong:

Candy Cane Coral

lights: medium

flow: medium

Metallic Orange Mushroom

lights: medium to low

flow: medium to low

Maxima Clam

lights: high

flow: medium

I believe I'm supposed to but them near the bottom with the lights dimmed and slowly increase the lights and move them up, is that right?

I've been periodically feeding New Life Spectrum Reef Micro-Feeder Formula for my big feather dusters and all the cool little hitchhiker ones, but is that sufficient for the clam and corals? What is a better food?

Thanks

[subsea]

George,

I would not have consideed the clam as a newbie coral. Position the clam near light intensity that is similiar to where he has been for two months. It is in this area that pet store retailers could list PAR values in their tanks and we could match the PAR in our tanks to the coral in question. To a certain degree, a trained eye can accomplish that.

Happy claming.

Patrick

[Timfish]

I wouldn't consider a clam a starter invert either but if you BTAs have been doing good for a while it is time to broaden your exerience base. As far as feeding there are very few corals/inverts I have that get specific feeding, probably 98% + only get incidental feeding when the fish are fed.

[George Monnat Jr]

Yea, I understand the clam may be too soon. We've wanted clams more than coral ever since seeing them while diving off Okinawa. And I really wanted to add blue to my tank. The other thing my wife wanted was a blue gorgonian, but both Shane and I didn't like that idea.

I'll take my PAR meter to Fishy Business and get a reading where it was. Then I'll attempt to convert his MH numbers to my LEDs.

Were the general parameters for the other two ok?

[subsea]

George, no conversion required. Just compare readings take from the same depth. While it is true, that different fixtures brighten larger areas and to do a fixture comparison it would be necessary to total readings over a broad area. For your application, you only want to know what PAR value was associated with this clam while in Shane's tanks.

Patrick

[George Monnat Jr]

I like to multiply PAR measurements of LEDs by 1.2 due to the sensitivity of the quantum meter in the 450nm range.

[subsea]

I like to multiply PAR measurements of LEDs by 1.2 due to the sensitivity of the quantum meter in the 450nm range.

I am not familiar with your meter and I do not understand a need for a correction factor in the actinic range. This should be a function of internal programing during initial calibration of the meter at the manufacture. However, if you use the same meter to make both measurements it does not matter what the correction factor is because it is the same correction factor in both cases.

Patrick

[George Monnat Jr]

Silicon-based photon sensors, like the PAR quantum sensors, are less sensitive at the blue end, as shown here:

LEDs are almost always blue around 450nm. White LEDs are actually blue LEDs with a phosphor coating, called blue-driven white. Here is a typical output for a "white" LED:

As you can see, the LEDs peak where the quantum sensor reads only 80% of the light. Thus, quantum sensors "under-represent" LEDs by 20%.

[victoly]

I like to multiply PAR measurements of LEDs by 1.2 due to the sensitivity of the quantum meter in the 450nm range.

I am not familiar with your meter and I do not understand a need for a correction factor in the actinic range. This should be a function of internal programing during initial calibration of the meter at the manufacture. However, if you use the same meter to make both measurements it does not matter what the correction factor is because it is the same correction factor in both cases.

Patrick

Email from Apogee Instruments on Measuring LED with Quantum Sensor:

"In regards to measuring LEDs with our quantum sensor, there are some caveats to doing so. The following link shows the spectral response of our quantum sensor (http://www.apogeeinstruments.com/quantum/spectralresponse.html). As the graph shows, Apogee quantum sensors underweight blue light, and as a result, photon flux measurements for blue LEDs will be too low. They also overweight red light up to a wavelength of approximately 650 nm, above which they do not measure, and as a result, photon flux measurement for red LEDs will either be too high (if the LED output is all below 650 nm) or too low (if a non-negligible fraction of the LED output is above 650 nm). Additionally, LEDs often have a very narrow spectral output, with a sharp peak of only a few nanometers. So, unless the quantum sensor has a perfectly flat spectral response, meaning it weights all wavelengths of light exactly the same, there will be errors. Electrically calibrated Apogee quantum sensors will likely provide a reasonable measurement for white LEDs because they are broadband, and because electrically calibrated quantum sensors are calibrated under CWF lamps. However, for narrowband LEDs, like red and blue, Apogee quantum sensors will not provide an accurate measurement.

As a less accurate method you can use the same spectral response graph as mentioned above to get a relative idea of the error. For example, a 450nm blue LED will have a relative response of approximately 0.8. Therefore, you can figure that the photon flux reading from the sensor is reading approximately 20% low. Just remember, this approach is only relative so give yourself a wide margin of potential error. A blue/white configuration should give you reasonable accuracy, particularly from the broadband spectrum of the white.

[George Monnat Jr]

Thank you, good info.

[subsea]

Getting back to your correction factor, how do you qualify which number gets multiplied by a factor of 1.2? All other sources of light need be removed and only Blue LED lights on for the number to be corrected. Otherwise you will overcompensate with your Blue LED correction factor.

Patrick

[George Monnat Jr]

All of my LEDs are blue LEDs.

That is true, but the vast majority of "white" LEDs are actually blue LEDs with phosphor coatings to make them white. They're called blue-driven white, and that's what the graph I posted above represents. You can see that it still has a massive blue spike.

Here's the profile for my AquaRay Reef Blue LEDs (which use high quality CREE LEDs).

Here's the profile for my AquaRay Marine White LEDs (which use high quality CREE LEDs).

Both blue and white LEDs (both actually blue LEDs) have high peaks around 450nm.

If you have other color LEDs, like red or green, then you could take separate readings. Read just blue and white and multiply by 1.2, then read all non-blue/white and multiply by 1.0.

I still don't know squat about coral light usage and photosynthetically useful radiation (PUR), except what I've read, but I do know LEDs (I better, my current job title is Optoelectronic Engineer ). If you're worried about the green/yellow light from the phosphor on the blue-driven white LEDs (last picture above), I don't think it's used by coral.

The chart from MARINELAND shows the chlorophyll curves overlaid with the spectrum of a typical blue-driven white LED.

Here's the same chlorophyll graphs from another source.

Even if the green/yellow component of the white LEDs is multiplied by 1.2 it won't hurt anything, I think from looking at graphs (but I have zero experience here). If anything, it'll cause the user to turn down the LEDs meaning less green/yellow light and not more, so even if high green/yellow light can bleach a coral the factor of 1.2 makes it safer (overestimates it instead of underestimating it).

I think that's one of the beauties of LEDs, they peak in the blue almost exactly lined up with the chlorophyll b peak, and they have little wasted energy in the green-orange spectrum where the chlorophyll curves are near zero.

Then again, coral could be needing that light for something else and I'm totally wrong. The chlorophyll a peak around 425nm worries me some. The fact that corals are deeper meaning most of that light (especially the peaks around 650nm) don't make it to them anyway lends me some confidence.

[George Monnat Jr]

I don't mean to be posting like I know what I'm talking about. I only know how to read spectrum output and sensor sensitivity graphs. That doesn't transltae well for knowing where to put these critters.

What do you (the people who know about reefing) recommend for flow for candycane coral, mushrooms and clams?

[victoly]

Low-medium for all of those will be bueno. And to clarify, all of your LEDs are royal blue ?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[George Monnat Jr]

Low-medium for all of those will be bueno. And to clarify, all of your LEDs are royal blue ?

Thank you. No, they are combinations of white and blue arrays, except for a single all-blue stick. Like this:

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb16/GeorgeMon/Pets/AquaRayLighting_Current.jpg

So all are blue-driven LEDs - no greens, reds, etc. I've thought about adding a few reds and greens just for color rendering, but I haven't done that, yet.

[subsea]

Must mushrooms like low flow and low light. The main exception is Ricordia.\

Patrick

[George Monnat Jr]

Must mushrooms like low flow and low light. The main exception is Ricordia.\

Patrick

Thank you.

Edit: I'm interested in Ricordia, do they like higher light and flow?

[cMidd]

Higher yes but nothing crazy. Enough light to keep their color. For me, mushrooms just kind of grow where they grow. Some of my mushrooms that have popped up in my tank are right under a 250w MH gettig blasted by flow and look fine, while some grew into the calmer areas. I think they would grow in a bucket w/ an air stone haha

[FarmerTy]

George, I'm sure you heard enough about the clam but when they are that small, they are typically more dependent on filtering food for survival. Once they get larger in the 3-4" inch range, they are more dependent on light for a source of energy. I also remember clams utilizing nitrates in a system and that clam propagators will actually add nitrates to their system. Don't know if that will help the ability of the clam to survive but just wanted to pass along what I've read in the past. I am by no means a clam expert... this is just the information I came across when I tried to keep a small clam alive myself. I lost that battle, but the nipping hippo tang didn't help out with that either.

[George Monnat Jr]

JeeperTy, thanks. Yea, I read stuff after I bought that I should've read before. I regularly feed New Life Spectrum Reef Micro-Feeder Formula and Piscine Energetics (PE) Cyclop-Eeze for my feather dusters and other filter feeders. Does anyone feed that to their clams, or is there a better clam food I can try?

It's looking good so far. It's really twitchy on the mantle (read that's a good sign) and coloration is great. It's still on the substrate, and I'm trying to decide when to move it up and on a rock.

[FarmerTy]

George, hopefully someone will chime in on the best food as I do not know myself. I'd imagine the juice off frozen foods you feed your fish would be beneficial, as well as fish poop. Oyster feast? Reef Roids, reef chili, or any type of those fine particle powder foods?

[(Bio)³]

I have heard clams like phytoplanton (PM me if you want some live phyto to dose your tank I got plenty I can spare for you) They also like rotifers (again just PM me and I can get you a rotifer bottle and a phyto bottle)

Hope your clam is doing great! I love my little one and can't wait for my other 2 to arrive!

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

I feed my baby maxima oyster feast. Both River City Aquatics and AquaTek sell it. My little guy has been happy with that for the past few months!

[George Monnat Jr]

I feed my baby maxima oyster feast. Both River City Aquatics and AquaTek sell it. My little guy has been happy with that for the past few months!

Thanks, I'll run by RCA tomorrow and grab that.

[George Monnat Jr]

On a happy note, it's as happy as a clam (I hope).