Derasa Clam not opening

Starfishandseahorse

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Hiya! Hope everyone is doing well tonight.

I have a 200 gallon tanks that I’ve been running for a few months that I think looks very good right now. I've been having a small amount of die off with my snails. I’ve had 4 different sos heavy tanks, 3 of them nanos and for some reason I have never been able to keep snails alive. But thats a different topic for a different thread :)

my levels are:
1.024 salinity
0 ammonia
0 nitrites
0 nitrates
I have 4 Red Sea 90 reef LED lights.

I have a derasa clam that I bought about a month back, and it’s been found very well the entire time I’ve had it. It looks healthy and has been opening nicely.
I noticed today that after my lights came on it has refused to open. I haven’t messed with it in any way, and I’m hoping nothing untoward is going on with it.

The only thing that’s changed recently is that I bought a pair of bonded cleaner shrimp this Tuesday (3 days ago) and added them to the tank. They have been zooming around like crazy, twiddling at any and everything. Including my clam. My clam had a small amount of algae growth on it last time I checked and it has been picked clean. My clams shell is now smooth and creamy white. I’ve caught my shrimp hanging out on my clams shell a few times earlier today before my lights came on.

could my clam just be irritated at my new shrimps attention? I hope it’s nothing more serious. I fed my tank some rotifers and plankton that my clam usually loves, but even that isn’t doing the trick and making it open. thoughts?

thank you all very much and I appreciate any help/advice!

:D
 

OrionN

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Clams are notorious for looking "happy as a clam" then died overnight.
To call a clam happy, you must see new grow on the edge of the shell, white new shell. You need to check for parasitic snails. These will kill your clams if you don't rid your tank of them. Here is an article I wrote on Tridacna's Pyramid Parasitic Snails.
Good luck with him.
 

xjiang7

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Apart from what OrionN said, I will try do a 10% water change (if you are not doing WC very often) as clam can soak up trace elements in water, also you may want to raise your nitrate a little to keep between 2-5 ppm
 

Subsea

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Not only do clams need nitrate, every living organism needs nitrate to live & grow. When nitrogen is limited, most desirable photosynthetic organisms suffer and opportunistic nuisance organisms thrive without the competition.
 

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