Disappearing Clam

[bpitts4]

Ok.....so I came home today and like most reefers first thing I do is check my tank. Well while doing an inspection, I discover that my clam is closed so I say....ha...let me move him because I have been wanting to relocate him for a while. Keep in mind that I just saw him open fully the night before as I doing my nightly inspection. So I pick up the shell and it felt funny so I flip him over to look at his foot and there is no animal inside of the shell. I pull it out of the water and the shell just flops open and is completely clean. I don't have any aggressive fish that would do this and I tested the water chemistry and the only things that is out of wack are my nitrates and alk is a little high. By the way the clam was on the sand bed.

Calcium: 420
Mag: 1300
Phos: 0
Nitrates: between 20 and 40 ppm
Alk: 13


How could he just disappear overnight like that?

 

[y-not]

What sort of clean up crew do you have employed?

I murdered my first clam. The clean up crew stepped up and cleaned out the shell in just a few hours.

Good clean up crew.
Bad me for not knowing what the clam needed to survive.

BTW, your nitrates are pretty high and your alkalinity is a little on the high side as well.

Oh...What sort of clam was he?

Some are fine with being on the sand.
Some want to be on the rocks.

And...did you see any little pyramid snails?

 

[bpitts4]

I haven't seen any snails. It was a baby maxima. It's been in my tank for 5 months no issues.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[jdavid]

bristleworms, pods, stars, all sorts of stuff in your tank will swarm a dead clam.

 

[y-not]

I would suspect that the real question is, what happened to him?
It's hard, if not impossible to isolate the root cause.

 

[jdavid]

Mine was doing fine, had its foot dug into rubble that I had buried in the sandbed. I moved it up higher and it let go of the rock and fell off. I suspect it spent some time getting stung by my frogspawn below it before it made it's way to the sandbed. It had a pretty severe case of pinched mantle, whatever happened to it. Did the RODI water dip to no avail, it died.

That's just my best guess of what happened.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

You must have a pretty sizable clean up crew?
I will say when clams go, they go FAST in my short experience.

I got 4 awesome clams from divers den and within 1 week 3 were showing signs of pinched mantle disease. The other 2 weren't extending their mantles as much either after the first week. I tried fresh water dip on the 2 worst ones and they were dead the next day. I dipped the 3rd at about 2 weeks and it died within 2 days (mantle separated on one side the next day). The last one lived about 2 days after the dip. I was really heartbroken, I never had clams in my tank and based on what I've read it's now infected with PMD and very difficult to rid. I may try another clam again 6 months from now but it'll be the most inexpensive thing I can find for sure.

I was surprised at how fast they died and how little "stuff" was in them once they died. A decent CUC could definitely clean them pretty quick.

I did not have pyramalid snails either fwiw.

 

[jdavid]

outdrsyguy1;913683 wrote: You must have a pretty sizable clean up crew?
I will say when clams go, they go FAST in my short experience.

I got 4 awesome clams from divers den and within 1 week 3 were showing signs of pinched mantle disease. The other 2 weren't extending their mantles as much either after the first week. I tried fresh water dip on the 2 worst ones and they were dead the next day. I dipped the 3rd at about 2 weeks and it died within 2 days (mantle separated on one side the next day). The last one lived about 2 days after the dip. I was really heartbroken, I never had clams in my tank and based on what I've read it's now infected with PMD and very difficult to rid. I may try another clam again 6 months from now but it'll be the most inexpensive thing I can find for sure.

I was surprised at how fast they died and how little "stuff" was in them once they died. A decent CUC could definitely clean them pretty quick.

I did not have pyramalid snails either fwiw.

Get a derasa. They are way easier, dont need as much light, or get PM.

I saw a super nice gold/blue pinstripe one at Rit's yesterday. I think it may be on sale right now too. They are generally under $50 when small

Edit: P.S. I do have a derasa doing well, speaking from experience in derasa vs small maximas. I think the larger maximas are a lot hardier also

 

[outdrsyguy1]

2 of my 4 were derasa. And one definitely got PMD (small one around 2.5"). Large one was around 5" and didn't extend mantle well and had a few suspicous spots.