[johnwesley0]

Question was answered.

 

[FernKing]

Make sure to check if the clams are alive frequently.

Yes. The clam guy said that’s why he was going to send me baby clams. They’re so small that if they die it won’t be that big of an impact. I can monitor the larger adults that way more easily. Ironically ammonia is the least of my worries 😭
I’m also trying to get some California black worms to help with cleanup. They can help scavenge things I don’t notice. My LFS all seem to be out of live black worms at the moment. They said it’s some sort of weird shortage.

 

[FernKing]

Question was answered.

But I appreciate your input too! I‘m learning as I go here 😂

 

[johnwesley0]

But I appreciate your input too! I‘m learning as I go here 😂

I guess my real question is what sort of dimmer do you have? Did it come with the lamp or did you buy it separately?

 

[FernKing]

I guess my real question is what sort of dimmer do you have? Did it come with the lamp or did you buy it separately?

I’m using a “smart” flood light. I can control it very precisely from an app on my phone. I can change the color/temp and brightness and put it on a very specific schedule. It‘s a smart bulb by “Cree lighting” but I think they may be discontinuing the line or maybe even going out of business. I hope they’re just coming out with a new generation of products instead but suddenly they aren’t available online.

 

[FernKing]

BTW: freshwater clams have been quite a spicy topic here on this forum 😂. I looked it up and there’s lots of bad reputations and hesitation in buying and general fear of the unknown. Then there’s the chill people who raise clams in their tanks and have a surplus 😂
I think I’m going to be okay for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t have a filter. I think many people struggle with clams because the clams are competing with mechanical filters for food. Second, my tank is obviously “bioactive” enough to produce enough food for clams to eat. My green water is a symptom of that if anything. There’s not many places for the biomass to go apart from pruning, so clams can eat the “food“ in the water as it moves through the food chain. One woman had success with her Malaysian trumpet snails and shrimp eating the occasional dead clam in short order. The clam salesman told me to add the baby Asian clams to the tank and let “survival of the fittest” take place and they’ll settle naturally. He only ships Mondays and Tuesdays so we shall see!

 

[FernKing]

It’s another episode of “The Walstad Method Works” 😂
So this is what my fishbowl looks like currently:

And these are my current water parameters 🫠🙃🤷‍♀️

0 ppm Ammonia. 0 ppm Nitrate. 0 ppm Nitrite. pH of 7. 😅 “Perfect” water.
Plants are growing slowly in the green water (slow but growing), fish are active and healthy, snails and other micro critters are swimming, shrimp are swimming in schools with the fish and everything else is going great- it just doesn’t LOOK great 🤓. . . but that’s okay. I’m focusing on the positive. The plan is working! I have one aesthetic issue to tackle and that’s the green water.
I’m still fascinated that this all works as well as it does. It’s not even that difficult. I think I would be struggling more with a high tech tank and spending lots of money. The real burden is placed on my affordable and highly sophisticated light bulb. The bulb is doing lots of heavy lifting here keeping the tank alive. The green water issue will be resolved eventually but in the meantime everyone in the tank is alive, thriving and happy. I can’t complain.

 

[FernKing]

My clams have arrived! I think I might want to start a separate topic to follow their journey since there seems to be a lot of controversy about clams in an aquarium. I want to start a nice clean discussion and also journal my personal results.

 

[FernKing]

Here’s a link to the clam thread.

Experiment! Freshwater Clams in a low tech, dirted...

I have a recently set up dirted, low tech fishbowl that developed a green water algae problem in the past few weeks. My first attempt at tackling the green water issue was with daphnia. My cardinal tetras quickly ate the daphnia before they could make an impact on the green water. My current...

www.aquaticplantcentral.com

 

[FernKing]

While the clams do their job, and I’m prepared to let them, does anyone have any low tech green water suggestions in the meantime? I feel lIke if I don’t see improvement in a few more days I should at least do a major water change and perhaps feed the fish less? Right now I’m feeding a quarter cube of frozen bloodworms a day and 1 small bottom feeder tablet every other day. I have 6 cardinal tetras, 4 kuhli loaches, 10 ghost shrimp and countless bladder snails.
This is what my tank looked like just 3 weeks ago:

This is now 😑

😭😭😭

 

[mistergreen]

You can turn off the light to stop the algae from multiplying.

 

[FernKing]

You can turn off the light to stop the algae from multiplying.

Diana is against blackouts because its bad for plants and I’ve read about people having iffy results from that. At this point, my plants are still growing. I might do a big water change. I feel like my problem is may be too much food or the wrong kind of food.

 

[FernKing]

Make sure to check if the clams are alive frequently.

I’m starting day three with the clams. They started off very healthy when I first got them (from what I can tell) and have mostly buried themselves since. Some clams “pop up” for a while then bury themselves again. From my reading these are hardy clams and other people’s experiences seem to be that if they are happy, they stay that way. One aquarium keeper started off with 10ish clams but when he broke down his large aquarium he had 200 clams! So far all of the clams are alive (as best as I can tell) and happy. It might take a minute, but if I observe where they ought to be, they usually spit out a plume of green goo every so often. It usually takes 5 minutes of constant obseration. Mostly it’s looking for signs of the clams: They’ll expell the green goo and it’ll accumulate against the glass or as I posted before they expell their green goo into the substrate making an out of place green patch against the glass in the gravel. A lot of people seem to nervously dig them up to check on them. The more experienced clam keepers implied that “you’ll know” if they die. So far, all clams seem alive and well! I’ll do an ammonia check just to be sure.

Edit: Ammonia is 0ppm.

 

[Fake_Buce777]

While the clams do their job, and I’m prepared to let them, does anyone have any low tech green water suggestions in the meantime? I feel lIke if I don’t see improvement in a few more days I should at least do a major water change and perhaps feed the fish less? Right now I’m feeding a quarter cube of frozen bloodworms a day and 1 small bottom feeder tablet every other day. I have 6 cardinal tetras, 4 kuhli loaches, 10 ghost shrimp and countless

While the clams do their job, and I’m prepared to let them, does anyone have any low tech green water suggestions in the meantime? I feel lIke if I don’t see improvement in a few more days I should at least do a major water change and perhaps feed the fish less? Right now I’m feeding a quarter cube of frozen bloodworms a day and 1 small bottom feeder tablet every other day. I have 6 cardinal tetras, 4 kuhli loaches, 10 ghost shrimp and countless bladder snails.
This is what my tank looked like just 3 weeks ago:
View attachment 77150
This is now 😑
View attachment 77151
😭😭😭

bladder snails.
This is what my tank looked like just 3 weeks ago:
View attachment 77150
This is now 😑
View attachment 77151
😭😭😭

Like some other folks suggested, cut the light. You can put something over the bulb itself to reduce. Like aluminum foil (does not burn) over a part of the bulb.

 

[FernKing]

Like some other folks suggested, cut the light. You can put something over the bulb itself to reduce. Like aluminum foil (does not burn) over a part of the bulb.

My light is fully programmable. I set a 2 1/2 hour siesta and I reduced the intensity to 75% (according to the settings). The result for the past week and a half is no reduction in green water algae. Should I do something else? What can I accomplish with adjusting my light in place of aluminum foil? How long should I adjust it for? Forever? Further I have frogbit. Should or could I put the frogbit in front of the light as a solution? Right now, I push it to the side.

 

[FernKing]

In case anyone wants one, this particular big bowl is back in stock 💖 (as of this post).

Amazon.com: WGV Large Bowl Glass Vase, Diameter 19", Height 16", (Multiple Sizes Choices) Clear Huge Round Bubble Vase Jar, Floral Planter Terrarium for Wedding Event Home Decor, 1 Piece (VBW1916) : Home & Kitchen

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www.amazon.com

 

[FernKing]

I added another hour to the siesta, for 3 hours total per day.

 

[johnwesley0]

what happens to the clams after the water gets cleaned up?

 

[FernKing]

what happens to the clams after the water gets cleaned up?

They’ll continue to eat and grow. These clams will just be part of the balance of the bowl. I don’t have a filter competing with them so they’ll just act as my filter. I’ll be adding food to feed the fish and the nutrients will follow the foodchain to the clams. The clam salesman said it’ll be a little of survival of the fittest with the clams adjusting to their own niche and balance in the bowl’s ecosystem. Some aquarium hobbyists have put in a few clams only to end up with hundreds found after a break down. My water was cleaned by the microfauna before the cardinal tetras ate most of them. I’m merely asking the clams to take over the role of the ostrocods to eat waterborne algae. So far the clams are happy! (but the water is still green 😭) I’m going to give them a week unaided to clear up the water. Even 30%-50% improvement would be a success because it means the battle is shifting in favor of the clams away from the algae.
If it doesn’t improve I’ll do a large water change and maybe try willow branches if the problem persists after that. I’m hoping the clams make an impact in weeks not in 6 months or something like that.

 

[mistergreen]

It's unlikely all of the clams will survive in a bowl.