Do you have a red flame scallop?

[Pszemol]

I've had one "red flame scallop" (Lima scabra) for a week now. I have fed it a couple times with "Micro Vert" by KENT but I have no idea if it is eating or not... How can you tell? It looks healthy (so far... ), but I cannot tell if it is feeling good too or not... Usually it keeps its shell wide open with its tentacles extended around the opening but sometime it looks like sad and unhappy with short tentacles and not fully open. A couple days ago it hideout to a life-rock cave (probably bothered by one of my hermit crabs) and it is sitting there... It is better for me to feed it in this place because there is a very slow water flow down there... but in other hand slow water flow maybe not good for it. Knowing how it moves, always backward, I think it probably stuck there helpless... Do I have to help him to get out from the cave or it will be fine where it is now, how do you think?

If you want to share with me your experience in taking care for scallops you are welcome to chat on ICQ, my number is 16192144.

[scubadude]

Most flame scallops are destined for death in an aquarium as they have a strict feeding regimen and require alot of phytoplankton. I would definately leave it where it is at especially if you can feed it easily and there is slow current....How are you feeding it do you just put the microvert in the tank? or are you target feeding it (using a turkey baster or pipette?) by applying it directly above its tentacles? I would try and give it a dose every day...just dont flood your tank with the stuff....use specific target feeding. Most filter feeders you dont really see them eat...they are just filter the very small sediments out of the water.

[thezookeeper]

Ditto to every single thing Scuba said. Unfortunately, they just shouldn't be sold. Good luck with yours though!


Joanne

[Firefish]

I have a flame scallop, about 18 months now. I don't feed him (or it) anything on account of it being behind all the rock work. It has attached itself to the glass and has been there for months. I would just let it find a place it likes and let it stay there. The only food I put in the tank is for the fish, misc. frozen and flake food. I add calcium and iodine about once a week. So far so good

[Pszemol]

Originally posted by scubadude
How are you feeding it do you just put the microvert in the tank? or are you target feeding it (using a turkey baster or pipette?) by applying it directly above its tentacles?

I try to target feed it with with a piece of vinyl tube but I have no idea if it likes the food or not... With fish it is pretty simple to tell but this guy is playing a difficult one ;) I am not sure if feeding time lasting a couple of minutes (max) is what this animal is used to - I fear that it expects its food to be in the water all the time My only hope is some kind of white miniature zoo-plankton which formed in my tank yesterday (pretty much - out of nowhere!) Fish are able to pick it up from the surface of the glass so maybe scallop will do the same filtering them from the water...
BTW - do you know what it may be? It is small and very, very small. It is hard to see its details even with with a strong magnifying glass (unfortunately I do not have a microscope yet...) Very similar to fresh-water cyclop on the attached picture and moving doing small jumps hiding in thin layer of green algae on the glass surface?

-Cyclop picture-

[Pszemol]

Originally posted by Firefish
I have a flame scallop, about 18 months now.

Wow... you are very lucky! How much did he grow during this time?

It has attached itself to the glass and has been there for months.

How has he attached itself to the glass??? What do you mean exactly??? Did it bound with some glue or something??

I would just let it find a place it likes and let it stay there.

I will do what you said... I hope it will stay with good health! Thank you for giving me this big dose of optimism

[scubadude]

Firefish,
I didnt say it could be done...just not real common...your tank may be mature enough to support a flame scallop. here look at this too.

Firefish's profile:
155 AGA Bow Front, 3 250 watt 12 Sunburst halides,

Pszemol's profile:
30 gal reef, emperor 400, cyclone skimmer

Now its pretty obvious that you are a more advance aquarist than Pszemol....Sorry Pszem im not trying to knock you down or anything...just trying to prove a point.

Pszemol,
The way you are feeding sounds fine....I would just keep trying to feed it and you may want to try DT's Phytoplankton....Im not too familiar with Micro Vert...maybe someone else can chime in....The micro animals that you are talking about (zooplankton) are more than likely pods....My point here is that you have a 30gal setup and flames generally require LOTS of feeding and in a 30gal it can be a catch 22....cuz you feed heavy which can easily foul up a small tank. another thing you may want to consider is turning off your skimmer for an hour during feeding of the flame scallop....sumtimes the skimmer will just pull the food right out and not give the flame a chance at it.

[Firefish]

Hey Scubadude, I didn't disagree with ya! I just posted to give Pszemol an idea of what luck I've had, read my post again, I didn't disagree or say anyone was wrong ;)

He's grown a little, it's hard to tell because he's way in the back.

I know he's attached to the glass and the rock that leans on the glass because I was doing a little aquqscaping and when I tried to move the rock, I could see looking down from above these "strings" that secured the shell to the rock and glass. I realy forgot he was in there untill I read your post;) I have a pic I'm tring to find, I'll post when I do.
I hope this post makes sense to you, I've been on the road all night working due to the ice storm...gotta get some shut-eye

[Pszemol]

I have one more question to the guys who has killed ;) their scallops already - how long did they live in your tanks? Is it matter of weeks or months? I have mine 8 days (got it last Thursday) It is still alive , but from the day it sits in his cave I noticed it sits often with it tentacles folded inside, between shells... When I put some light in its direction (from a flashlight) it reacts with moving out its tentacles for a while... (then I try to feed it) Obviously they are light-sensitive... but how do they use the light? Do they have a normal day/night cycle? If so, how does it influence my scallop sitting 24/7 in the almost dark cave? Maybe I will do better movig it out from this place?

And one more (last thing for now ). Since I got it, I noticed a couple strange objects glued to the glass or the rocks - it looks like its droppings or discarded tentacles... a one inch long threadlike, light brown with a gluelike drop on the one end. This thing is glued to the glass with this drop of "glue". Is he loosing its tentacles with me like I am loosing my hair with him or what??? Please, recommend some good book or website about scallops! I want to learn something before it is too late...

p.s. these things do look beautiful but they are way too much troubles!

[Pszemol]

Just to let you know - it is almost 3rd week and it is still alive and doing great. Using an occasion it moved out from its cave where it sit for a week I took some pictures of my tank las Sunday and made available on the website - have a peek: Pszemol's Aquarium
Yesterday night it moved again and attached itself this time between my powerhead and the glass wall of the tank. I turned off all filters/skimmer this day and feed my fish with live brine shrimps and I noticed that scallop attempted to catch one shrimp sweeming to close to its tentacles. It made this move with his tentacles to gather shrimp to his mouth but it was unsuccesful - shrimp was to fast. This observation gave me a new idea: "Maybe my scallop would like to eat a bigger pray than foggy liquid like MicroVert from time to time?" What do you think about that? I have some copepods sweeming in my tank, but I do not know if scallop is able to catch them... Have you ever tried to feed scallops with live shrimps or live artemia? Any other feeding ideas?
BTW: how would you explain it sudden relocation needs? Is it starving and desperately looking for a better feeding place or just acclimated to the tank and it is sightseeing? ;)

[Bristle Worm]

Is your flame scallop still alive now or did it die?

[Ninong]

BTW: how would you explain it sudden relocation needs? Is it starving and desperately looking for a better feeding place or just acclimated to the tank and it is sightseeing? ;)

Clams move because they are unhappy where they are. They could be unhappy for any number of reasons. Perhaps they don't like the water current, maybe they can't get appropriate food there, maybe they don't like the lighting. In your case, it could be because the lighting is too strong since "flame scallops," which are really clams and not scallops, are not photosynthetic -- they do not harbor zooxanthellae like Tridacnids.

[Pszemol]

Is your flame scallop still alive now or did it die?

It died long time ago due to the lack of appropriate food. I dont think my tank was ready for such animal back then.