more clams dead

[Delphinus]

Seems to make sense to me Steve. What do you use in your freshwater system to add nitrate?

And Jayson, same question, what are you using to add this nitrate? Where does one find this stuff (does it have a brand name?) Is is just some kind of specialized fertilizer?

I recognize Jayson's need to dose sodium nitrate; 180 clams that need to be fed is an awful lot of mouths to feed! (Imagine the DT's dosage on that one :eek: ). My last follow up question is this; in the hobbyist setup where there are only a few clams at most, is it as crucial to dose this nitrate, as it would be for a system maintaining 100+ clams?

I know I could easily add a whole pile of nitrates to my clam tank; by plumbing in my 20g carpet tank that chronically suffers from nitrates >40ppm. Of course, since the clam tank is only a 75g with 20g volume in the sump, the clam tank would go from (95g at 0.0 NO3) + (20g at 40.0 ppm) = 115g at ~6.9ppm (if my math is right). The one thing about that is, it would be a 0.0 to ~7.0 instantaneous jump, which I think would probably shock the heck out of things. I don't know, perhaps I am overly paranoid..

Presumably, things such as caulerpa and other macros will also be competing with clams for NO3 just as much as that DSB is..