Problems with Clam...

[mkengr45]

I bought a clam last friday and it looks like crapola now. I am thinking of trying a fresh water dip, but I really dont know how to do it. Is it pure fresh water of just a weak salt mixture? Won't this **** the clam off going directly into fresh water and then back to salt? Someone please help me here. here are some pics of the clam. Does it look like it has pinched mantle? should I try the fresh water dip? How the heck do I do the fresh water dip and for how long. Wouldnt the dip freak the clam out???

[Polkster13]

Was the clam exposed to air? If so, did you "burp" the clam to get any air pockets out? If you don't, it will die.

[thedude]

How big is the clam? Try polkster's suggestion but unfortunately, if the mantle on the clam is receding into the shell like the picture indicates, it usually spells doom. I wouldn't try the freshwater dip, they are VERY taxing on the clam and would simply put it over the edge.

[mathias]

my problem is my scooter blenny kept spitting sand into mine so make sure no sand is in it....

[pilot_bell777]

What are your water params and what else do you have in the tank?

[purplesprite]

what do you do if there is sand in it?I too recently bought a clam it looked great up until the second day.now its doing the same,mantle receding.

[mkengr45]

water parameters are perfect. I have frogspawn, hammers, shrooms, zoos, 1 brain, 2 yellow tangs, 1 blue tang, 2 clowns, at least 250# live rock, xenia, gsp, hydraphora, yellow porites, caps, fungia, yellow watchman goby. Everything else but the clam has been fine for a long time. I am thinking of doing the fresh water dip because it seems there is no other alternative other than let it die...... It is not really close to any corals other than some xenia. Do I just go for the fresh water dip or should I ride it out and see how it goes? I want to do something here..

[mathias]

turn it over and shake the sand out and then firmly point my finger at the fish and yell at him and say NO!!!!

[jaded]

Im no expert but I would ride it out. That clam look mighty unhappy and a fresh water dip might just end any chance of a rebound

again, Im no expert but thats what I would do. If he dies in the next few days theres nothing a FWD could have done anyway

[Richard]

water parameters are perfect


What is perfect? Do you have numbers?

[pilot_bell777]

I would personally start with try to REALLY burp it good.....


No Pyramidellid snails? Bristle Worms? Crabs?

Also....what lights, flow, calc levels are you at?

[mkengr45]

amm, nitrite, nitrate are all zero, Ca is 450, temp is 78, lighting is a 250w AB 10k metal halide about 6 weeks old. Flow is mag 9.5 on a closed loop. CPR skimmer, and I do 5 gallon water change every weekend. The clam is in a low flow area

[pilot_bell777]

OH....I just read that you just bought it! I wouldn't do anything for a while personally except burp it and look for snails and crabs bothering it. If you aclimated it good then that is the best you can do right now. Photo inverts get very stressed when being moved from one light source to another and from one water permams to another. A fresh water dip probably would kill him for sure.

I'd burp him and look for the snails, they look like little grains of rice. If you hvae the snails you can get a 4 line wrasse or something that will attack them.

Best advise I can give....... :-) Good luck and keep us posted.

[thedude]

It looks like a croacea from the picture I can see as well, and these are rock boring clams. They're found high in the rock structure in the wild and bore a hole into the rock if they're there long enough. Make sure he has something to grip onto. A good alternative that allows you to leave him in the sand is to bury a small piece of acrylic under the sand beneath him for him to attach to. Most predators attack the foot.

[Pacman]

PM sent...

Also I outlined the steps for a FW dip at http://www.maast.org/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=14577&pos tdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Matt

[mkengr45]

Well the clam is looking worse and worse. I called Alex but he said he had never done the fresh water dip and he wasnt sure what to do. Any ideas? It doesnt smell bad, but it does look like some flesh is breaking off of it. Should I just toss it and attribute it to being a bad clam?

[purplesprite]

try the freshwater dip,it worked for me .10 minutes in fresh RODI.its worth a try anyway before you 86 it.

[hobogato]

do you have a quarantene tank, so if it dies it won't mess up your tank? i have done freshwater dips with several clams, with great success, but they were pretty healthy except for small mantle pinches. what i did was put the clam in RO/DI water for 10 to 30 minutes (usually 10 the first time and 30 if a second dip was needed). put the clam back in the tank and leave it alone. it will look pretty sick for a couple of days, and then should start to look more normal. if the pinch is still there when the rest of the mantle looks normal, dip again. since yours seems much worse than mine were to begin with, i would dip and then put it in a quarantene to make sure it doesn't crash your tank.

[thedude]

The clam wouldn't happen to be from ORA would it... got a few clams from them recently that died of unidentified ailments. In my opinion, it looks like they're either being stressed too much in shipping or are not being given a chance to get healthy before ORA ships them out. Calls and emails to ORA from myself continue to go unanswered...

John

[mkengr45]

I am not sure of the wholesaler, but I got it from wolfreef. Its friggin dead now. Smells like a bad fart. at least I learned something from this...........

Randy

[AlexKilpatrick]

How do you burp a clam? Put it over your shoulder and tap the back?

[Polkster13]

Alex,

To burp a clam you gently pick it up and turn it in several directions to get any trapped air out. I also lightly touch the side of the clam and get it to squirt which will also help release any trapped air. I do this several times to ensure that no air bubbles are left in the clam as these would be fatal.

HTH