clam x clam

[hammondegge]

How do clams make more clams?

[pilot_bell777]

Well.....not sure we should go into the bumble bee shrimp and Penguin story here on MAAST.


LOL

[hammondegge]

ewwwwww, gross

[Darth-Tater]

As a science teacher let's just say they have clam sex :o


DT

[Richard]

They...ahhh nevermind. The maast police will get after me.

[akm]

They reach maturity at about 5 years then they do it pretty much the same as us...

[Darth-Tater]

Clams smoke :skeezy

DT

[hammondegge]

good thing you're a science teacher...with a mouth like that! :blush
seriously folks, does any one know? i know that they can be aquacultured, but how?? Do you just turn the lights off?

[hammondegge]

i don't think sooooo aaron

[Darth-Tater]

Ask hobogato he teaches biology I think ;)

DT

[akm]

When clams are aquacultured there are usually many in one area. To encourage them to release gametes the temperature is often raised. This stresses the clams somewhat causing them to release their sperm/eggs.

[jap1]

Put lots of beer/wine in the tank, put on some Barry White, turn off the lights, and BAM! Within a few months you'll have some new clams. Wow I am such a noob.

[hammondegge]

thanks aaron
does each clam have sperm and eggs, or spermeggs. and are they planktonic in an early stage of development?
and does it have to be Barry White, would Barry Manilow do?

[akm]

I dont think that they have both, there are probably female and male clams. They are probably pretty small but I dont know about planktonic.

[LoneStar]

http://www.maast.org/modules/PNphpBB2/images/avatars/gallery/Pixar/Beaker.gif

I love that avatar!! I can only imagine Beaker trying to get the clams to mate lol

[Magneto]

Jim Norris had a video about it and showed it a few years back at one of the austin reef keepers meetings. But pretty much take em out of the water into the sun for a little bit and stress em. So they think they are gonna die and try to spawn one more time before that. Guess it is one thing to do if you think you are gonna die soon.

[hammondegge]

brutal

[scuba_steveo]

You can't frag them?

[mathias]

so which end do you stick your finger to see if its a male or female?

[hoho19]

WOAH! this is a family show!!

So anybody know which end??? :P


so which end do you stick your finger to see if its a male or female?

[GaryP]

Giant clams reproduce sexually via broadcast spawning. They expel sperm and eggs into the sea. Fertilization takes place in open water and is followed by a planktonic larval stage. The larvae (veligers) must swim and feed in the water column until they are sufficiently developed to settle on a suitable substrate, usually sand or coral rubble, and begin their adult life as a sessile clam.

[carlinsa]

i am glad someone asked cause i was thinking about this last night but i didnt want to get flamed or beat up for asking.

Great question and good to know

[GaryP]

I figured someone had to give a straight answer.

I'm not actually sure they are truly aquacultured though. I may be wrong. I think they simply collect the small clams and grow them out in captivity. This is what is called "farm raised" clams. If you really want to get more info, go directly to the source, and go ask Barry on his forum.

http://www.clamsdirect.com/

[hammondegge]

thanks gary, do you know if they are hermaphroditic (that should light a match) or are there male and female clams? ....takes a veliger to raise a clam :D :D :D
my pleasure carl, i have been looking around for this information for some time now. there doesnt seem to exist a comprehensive source. does anyone know of a good source of information on tridachna propogation??

[GaryP]

Giant clams start out life as males and, after 5 or 6 years, become hermaphroditic although evidence showed they did not fertilize themselves. The clams become big egg producers after they are perhaps 10 to 15 years old.

[hammondegge]

ahhhh...."MAAST Education Committee Chairman". Good Choice!

[GaryP]

Naw, just someone that can do a lot of things with a search engine. Its all out there. You just have to know how to look for it.

[hammondegge]

well nice googling

[hammondegge]

well here is something

Some Basic Biology

"Clams are rather simple animals anatomically. They have two shells, and very basic organs and organ systems. Their most remarkable feature is their algal symbionts. Clams have a shell (duh). Two shell halves are connected at the bottom by a joint that consists of 4 "teeth" that interlock. When viewing a clam from the bottom, you will notice a large hole, this is the byssal orifice. Clams build their shell by uptaking calcium from the water, much like stony corals build their skeletons. The adductor muscle is connected to both halves of the shell, and is responsible for the opening and closing of the two halves.

Clams have a very simple cardiovascular system, a small heart, with two main arteries and two main veins. They have gills, which provide for gas exchange and filtering of small food particles, and kidneys for the removal of toxic metabolic byproducts from the blood.

Clams possess a very basic nervous system, consisting only of nerve ganglia (bundles) which control the organs and organ systems, and also receive sensory data from the clams iridiphores (eye like organs). Notice when you pass your hand over a clam creating a shadow, the clams closes up. The iridiphores can only sense the amount of incoming light.

Clams do have a digestive tract and excretory system. Suspended food particles from the gills where they travel down nutritional channels to a mouth, down the esophagus, and into the stomach where the food is broken down. The foodstuff is then passed to intestines where nutrients are absorbed and waste excreted through the anus. The kidneys secrete toxic waste into the outcurrent siphon.

Sexually, clams are simultaneous hermaphrodites, meaning they all possess both testes and ovaries. However, whereas the male gonads are active when the clam is young, the ovaries are only active when the animal has reached maturity.

Of great importance to the smaller of the tridachnid species is the byssal organ and gland. They byssal organ is secured within the animal by four muscles. Threads are produced by the gland which secure the clam to substrate. This keeps them from sloshing around in the ocean current, and helps to keep them situated for optimum exposure of the mantle to light. Which bring us to the mantle and the algal symbionts. The mantle is the part of the clam with the gorgeous colors and patterning. It can extend and recess into the shell halves. There are two parts of the mantle, a lateral mantle which is attached to the sides of the shell, and the syphonal mantle- the pretty part us clam freaks lust for. The syphonal mantle has two openings, the big incurrent opening, where water passes in and goes through the gills, and the excurrent opening, where water is expelled.

The zooxanthellae are housed here in the syphonal mantle, as are the iridiphores mentioned above. Zooxanthellae are microscopic algae, and can produce fabulously colored pigments, most likely the purpose of these pigments is to protect the algae from harmful UV rays.

Tridachnid clams differ from most other bi-valves with this symbiotic relationship. Clams carry up to 10x the number of these symbionts per square (insert convenient unit of measurement here) than corals. They can change the population density apparently by phagocytosis, and possibly also excreting them through the channel system. Up until 1992 it was assumed that these zooxanthellae were housed in the blood vessels of the mantle. This seems reasonable as it would give an easy explanation of how the algae transported nutrition to the clam. A big wrench was thrown into the works when it was discovered that the algae live in closed channels which run from the mantle into the stomach. In juvenile clams the zooxanthellae first appear in the stomach, so it can be hypothesized that the zooxanthellae then travel an upward path into the mantle.

The big question is: how does the algae get the nutrition to the clam? Its possible that the products of photosynthesis and the dark cycle which produces carbohydrate travel down the channel system into the stomach. Its unclear to me, and apparently unclear to Knop after reading the book, exactly what mechanism is responsible here. Hopefully a few weeks sitting in the bio library will yield more answers on the role of zooxanthellae in clam nutrition." David C. Potts

[mathias]

way to ruin it with a lot of reading


****.......

[hammondegge]

here ya go

[GaryP]

here ya go
That is a pic from my old tank, before I downsized. :)