Clam was mad and missing chunks

[kkiel02]

Ok so the other day I forgot to turn on my return pump before leaving to work. I came back with the clam pretty ****ed and figured it was the water quality or something along those lines. It is now coming out more but it looks like something took small 1/8th inch chunks out of the side of it. Here are my ideas of the culprits... flat worms? I recently found some around the sametime as this happend I have treated for them with quite a bit of success and now the clam looks happier. Powder brown was also recently added around the same timeframe but I havent seen him pick at the clam just at rocks. Another idea is that he just got stressed out or something? I have had the clam for a couple months now with great growth and coloration. I really am thinking flatworms but what do yall think? I thought flatworms were mainly detrivores but this is my first experience with them.

[Kristy]

Don't know anything about flatworms but that is how our clam looked when our flame tailed blenny starting snacking on him. Shortly thereafter, our clam looked dead. :(

[kkiel02]

hmm also added a midas fairly recently a month or so ago. Ive had a flametail for about 6 months. It looks better at this point though.

[Mr Cob]

Same thing happened to my Maxima clam when my Coral Beauty was munching on him. I caged the clam up until I was able to get the Coral beauty out.

Just make a eggcrate cage for it until you find out what's going on...it will at the very least keep the bigger fish from him.

[OrionN]

Fish take semi-circle *****s out of the clam mantel. Get that fish out or kiss your clam goodbye. I got a yellow Coris wrasse way early in my reefing career that just go crazy after 6 months and took chunks out of my clams. Fortunately, catching a Coris wrasse is easy in a sand bed tank. See where he dive into the sand and just dug him out there once you scare him into diving into the sand.

[CoryDude]

It'll recover if you keep the fish from getting the munchies again. I had a coral beauty that would also do the same thing to the mantle. The clam would close up for a few days to a week. After it happened a few times I decided it was worth tearing apart the tank to pull the cb and save the maxima.

[CoryDude]

BTW, when I saw the discussion title, I thought of that nasty joke where the guy's dog is named chunks.

[alton]

Clams can sometimes tell who is friend or foe. Watch your fish and clam, if your clam stays open when fish swim by your fine, if it closes when one swims by, this one should be the culprit. I had a Imperator that grew up in the same tank as a clam and where fine for over a year and then one day I noticed everytime the Imp swam by the clam would close. The purple tang could run into it and the clam would not flinch, let the Imp swim by and close, I moved the clam.

[OrionN]

Clam does not have any brain. They just react o water movement and change in light. They do have "eye spots" that detect change in light intensity. They don't "see" as we see. They just don't have the neural capacity for this.