Coolest Scallop Ever!

[bunjiweb]

Well i fell in love with these as soon as i saw them, the video is very poor quality as it is off my phone...

http/www.bunjiweb.co.uk/scallop.3gp

See that blue flashing? It looks like bio-luminescent edging that they have. Its absolutely amazing to watch as I have never seen an example of this in an invert in home aquarium!

Got a new tank and put 3 of them in it alongwith the pink scallop I already have....

Hope you like them!

Ben

 

[@ombomb]

That's amazing!

Any shots of the tank?

 

[Mr Miagi]

Vid doesnt work. NAy chance you can upload it too photobucket? Or another host?

 

[superman]

vid works for me. How long have you had your other scallops? In most people's tanks scallops don't last more than a year or so.

 

[bunjiweb]

Scallops in the wild don't last very long. I wouldnt expect these to live past 2 years at all. They have to be well fed on planktonic feed (frozen, coral food etc.). They also need high alkalinity and calcium to grow properly.

The vid should work, it uses Quicktime on my PC to view it. I will post pics tomorrow if i can!

Ben

 

[steelhealr]

Well, Ben, I think you have one of the best tanks around, but, this is where I diverge. Flame scallops are one of the most 'dangerous' additions to put in a nano tank. They are extremely difficult to keep alive and quite toxic when they die. I've followed a lot of threads over the last year where 'nano'ers' have put them in their tank and the results were disastrous. If this is in your nano, I must post here a caution to other newcomers about rushing to add these to their tanks. If your second tank is larger, then, there may be a better chance. I hope that you fare better. SH

Can "swim away" if threatened. A beautiful animal that generally starves in captivity due to a lack of food.

Just in case that didn’t sink in, I wanted to make a point of emphasizing that the survival record of flame scallops in captivity has traditionally been extremely poor. The typical experience of people who buy them is that the animal tries its best at hiding (often with the aquarist having to pick it out of the rockwork numerous times so that it is visible in the aquarium) for a while before eventually giving up and slowly dying. Even when the rest of the reef tank is flourishing, people who add a flame scallop to their tank typically watch as it slowly wastes away over a period as short as a couple of months to a maximum of about six to ten months. I would guess that the single most common cause for the demise of flame scallops in any aquarium is quite simply starvation. Although I should also point out right off the bat that these animals are relatively short-lived (something on the order of about three to four years maximum, and I’ll come back to this later), there are still precious few reports of these animals surviving in captivity for more than a year or so. Sadly, the 6-10 months that most people manage to keep a flame scallop in their tank is also a reasonable estimate of how long it should take a well-fed animal to starve to death after collection and being placed in an aquarium in which it is deprived of food.

 

[Lynden]

One new fishforums member's post pointed out the beauty and brightness of the electric flame scallop's light flashes; he was rediculed for this. What is this civilization coming to?

About the care of them, they are quite difficult and may starve. But is is often just as likely that they will die of old age first, since they are often collected when they are near full adult size. The toxicity of them I cannot say, because when mine died, nothing really changed in the tank.

-Lynden

 

[Lynden]

He merely pointed it out; he didnt want to keep one. He was rediculed because nobody thought such an invertebrate existed!

 

[Lynden]

I was reffering to another post made by a new member a while ago. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Navarre]

All the above comments are indeed correct but an often overlooked occurance with these types of creatures is that they almost always carry parasetic creatures. PeaCrabs are the most commmon and they live in harmony with the Scallop. They actually take some of the food from the scallop as it collects it. When the food suply gets low, the crab merely starts to eat the scallop. This happened ot me and my flame, it was great for a few days and then i saw deterioration over the next 2 months. It was only when the thing had actualy died that i saw this strange creature moving around inside the shell. I removed it and sumped it. Pea crabs can mirgate to other scallops if the one they are in is failing in health. This means other scallops, clams etc are not safe from any new additional scallops tht are added later.

This might be one of the reasons why scallops die so fast in home tanks. the food is simply not enough for itself and a peacrab.

 

[bunjiweb]

Never fear Navarre, I knew the potential risk thats why i set up a new tank. Its only about 5-6 Gallons but I should be able to keep on top of the water quality easily with water from work, and the only other things I plan to have in the tank are the 2 turbo snails I already have and possibly an shrimp and some coral frags.

Ben

 

[Navarre]

Good luck with it, it looks stunning! If i thought i could get away with another i would atempt one.

 

[bunjiweb]

Couple of pics!

Tank.

Tried to capture a couple of pics of the blue flashing but it didnt come out anywhere near as bright as it appears to me.

Ben

 

[pleder]

Those scallops are commonly sold on this side of the pond as electric scallops. I was lucky enough to keep one of the more commn flame scallops alive for a couple years by target feeding Nanno oculata with a turkey baister.

They are quite the speciment.

Good Luck.