Minimum Derasa size for mantle feeding?

[little fishes]

At what size will a Derasa clam mantle feed? I recently got a clam with awesome color but it came in quite a bit smaller then I thought it would be (a little less then 2 inch) so I began feeding it phytoplankton every night by placing a 1/2 pop bottle over it for ~1/2 - 1 hour with the DTs in it. Clam only lasted 5 days all water parameters check out fine and my squamosa, gigas, and 2 maximas are fine. My guess was that it had not been getting food while with the middlemen- anyone one else have any ideas?
Cheers,
Tracy

 

[chris&barb]

there could have been many thing that caused the clam to die. clams in the 3" to 4" size range tend to ship better and acclimate better then smaller clams. it has been said that when a clam reaches about 3" in size that there mantles are fully developed and can support them fully on light alone, but i was just recently told(by a reliable source) that that information is a misinterpration data, and that clams can support themselves fully from light alone at a very young age.

 

[Maxx]

I have a small Maxima that has never (to my knowledge) been fed. Its almost an inch and a half now. I purchased it a little over a year ago from the LFS. They never fed it either and had it in their tanks under high lighting for almost 6 months. I figured I'd give a shot and see what happened.

Its still doing fine.

Nick

 

[little fishes]

Thanks for the input- Guess maybe it was not the feeding then. Just frustrated to have lost it and not know why.