Do clams filter nitrates?
Clams constantly filter nutrients such as ammonia and nitrate from the water thereby reducing the biological load and lowering the overall nitrate level in the aquarium, improving water conditions.
What gives giant clams their color?
algae
Description. As the largest bivalve mollusc, the giant clam weighs a great average of 200kg. This unique species is found to be a wide variety of colours, created by a contrast between algae inside the clam and the clam’s natural pigment.
Do clams consume nitrates?
yes, they do.
Do clams improve water quality?
By this very act of feeding, clams filter phytoplankton (microscopic algae or plants), microorganisms, and detritus. In doing so, they improve water clarity by reducing sediment loads and turbidity and removing excess nutrients from inshore coastal waters.
Why do giant clams glow?
Giant clams’ luminosity is not such a signal. So, what is it? In the years since, Sweeney and her colleagues have discovered that the clams’ iridescence is essentially the outer glow of a solar transformer—optimized over millions of years to run on sunlight and algal biofuel.
How do giant clams get so big?
Giant clams achieve their enormous proportions by consuming the sugars and proteins produced by the billions of algae that live in their tissues.
Are giant clam shells illegal?
Giant clams are protected by national legislation in most places where they live—in the waters of the South China Sea, Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea. International trade of all 12 species is limited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Do clams filter toxins?
As they filter water, the bivalves’ tissues absorb some of the chemicals and pathogens that are present – things like herbicides, pharmaceuticals and flame retardants – according to researchers at Stanford University in California.
Can clams purify water?
Clams Clean the Water by Filter Feeding Suspended particles in the water are captured by the gills and moved to the mouth for ingestion. The cleared water is then ejected from the excurrent siphon. By this very act of feeding, clams filter phytoplankton (microscopic algae or plants), microorganisms, and detritus.
Do clams eat nitrates?
Do clams need salt water?
Most clams, including the colorful giant clams available in the pet trade, are marine animals and so they need a saltwater aquarium. Seawater contains a large number of different elements in solution.
Can clams photosynthesize?
The majority of their energy is derived from symbiotic algae living within their cells, providing the clams with excess energy that they make via photosynthesis (the use of sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into food/energy).
Can giant clams produce pearls?
In case you didn’t know, giant Tridacna clams can also make pearls, but these are much more rare, and hence even more valuable. From the size of the 75 pound pearl, it’s clear that it was produced by the world’s largest bivalve, Tridacna gigas.
How much is giant pearl worth?
between $60 million and $90 million
They are the largest mollusks in the fossil record, measuring more than a meter wide and weighing more than 200 kilograms. Insurance appraisers have placed the value of The Giga Pearl at somewhere between $60 million and $90 million, according to Reyes.