Crocea Clam Spawning

[Wall_Tank]

So I was watching TV tonight, glanced at the tank.......  darn, something causing my pump to cavitate and spit out tons of air.   So I went to the sump, everything seemed fine.  Looked at my frag tanks, one tank was clear, the other is full of bubbles too.    Then I noticed my two crocea clams spawnging away, lasted for at least 20 minutes.

I had moved these from my main display tank when I was removing rocks.  

Where this tank sits, I could not get a clean shot of the event, but I did get a couple.

[HUNGER]

waaa cool

[jungliztkruger]

billions of baby clams 

[cyberwollf]

dibs

[jungliztkruger]

scoop em out a handful at a time

[reefman]

This usually means they are stressed.

[Blown76mav]

I'd be doing some reading real quick, heres just part of a page I found.

Spawning in Aquaria

So, they do spawn in aquaria from time to time, but this can lead to serious trouble in the closed confines on a tank if you don't take immediate action. In fact, if the gametes aren't cleaned up quickly, there's a chance that a spawning event can lead to the death of everything in the tank! So, let's look at some of the things that might cause a clam to spawn (so that you can avoid them), and then what to do if it happens anyway.

First of all, spawning is a natural occurrence, thus healthy and mature tridacnids may spawn in aquariums as a normal part of life. However, they may also spawn if they're mature and are subjected to too much stress. When something goes wrong a clam may respond by ejecting any gametes it's holding, as this may ensure the survival of some of its potential offspring if it should be killed. Remember that tridacnids also give off spawn-inducing pheromones, too. So, if something entices a clam to spawn early, the rest of the clams in the area will likely do the same. In the wild, the gametes and fertilized eggs may be carried away by currents to other areas that have more favorable conditions, and the population's genes would stand a much better chance of survival if things went really bad for the parents.

Natural spawning will occur when a clam becomes ripe with large stores of gametes, but "survival spawning" as I call it, can occur at any time, whether a clam has only a few gametes or a full complement. It also doesn't matter if a clam is only at the male-phase of sexual maturity and can release only sperm, rather than both sperm and eggs, either. It's simply a last-ditch effort to save their genes, so whatever is there will be ejected, whether a clam is really ready to spawn or not.

The rest is here.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/8/inverts

[Joel]

A series of water changes and aggressive protein skimming will help prevent this from causing a water quality issue.   

[Wall_Tank]

I've done alot of Clam Reading before, but thanks for posting and caring.   These clams are 4+ years in my tank.  It's possible that the move stressed them, but that was about 3 months ago, there are no negative signs of stress are out there.   It's most likely the lower temperatures, since we seemed to have transitioned from Summer to Fall pretty quickly, there isn't the "heat" of the day anymore.

I know that is a big chance of a bioload.   Everything seemed happy to get a few nutrients.   I have a way oversized skimmer for the tank, it was just cleaned.  I also had a clean filter sock already, which I'll change tonight.  I also have water on the ready too.   Just after this happened, I watched my ORP, and it didn't move too much.   I also have a controller, so I've been watching tank paramaters.  Everything looks fine.

[jungliztkruger]

hmmm  then pull up a chair and watch the babies grow

i can only imagine walking up to a tank and thinking that the crushed coral substrate seems darker than it is traditionally only to look closer and find that the substrate is actually covered with thousands of baby clams.  that would probably be a great way to convince the missus that a calcium reactor is a good idea