Grumpy Clam

[Scdell]

Shy of cutting the byssal threads and potentially the foot moving it has been impossible since day one, like I said. I've actually read through essentially everything I could possibly find so far including material recommended by some tridacnid farmers in quensland whom I contacted via facebook to help ID the species, I honestly just don't have allot of hands-on experience with the animals and that counts for A TON with hobbies like this; do you have any recommendations?

Yeah, take your time, let the tank mature. People think pristine water means they can put anything in their tank. It doesn't work that way. Take your time. Nothing good happens fast in this hobby.

 

[PocketClam]

Also if you have too few fish your clam may be starved of nitrate and phosphate, which it needs for the zooxanthellae

I fed the euphyllia, blasto, stylo, and chalice weekly to keep nitrates detectable (gotta' stay cycled), also use the Red Sea AB supplements daily.

It's what you posted.

I have no clue what to tell you, re-read the OP, I never said that quite literally, sorry.

I'm mostly confused as to why it would do totally fine for half a year and then start showing vague "problems" (that I've not been able to find any info on either to boot despite a few weeks of google-fu and phone-calls, oiy) which are getting chalked up to new-tank-syndrome, from what I understand from keeping cichlids I always thought that was just a blanket-term for poor-husbandry or water parameters; from glancing about it seems that most animals do fine in nano-tanks which have their total-volume changed out frequently for water-changes and seem to live rather well even when carted about the country to shows for display.
That said I know marine tanks are quite a bit different and certainly aren't my strong-suit, if it stops growing or shows signs of decline I plan to take it back to the LFS to be re-homed, I have no interest in killing an animal just to see if I can "make things work", even if it was growing and doing fine previously.

The only coraline I have was imported on a few frag plugs and hasn't spread much through the tank yet, I had mostly chalked that up to struggling with chryosphytes and needing the scrub the rocks and dose h202 frequently over the last few months, which never seemed to bother any of the inhabitants at the time.

Anyway, thank you for your time and the tips, I may try to get nutrients up by cutting back on the weekly water-changes and will look into temps, I might try to bring alk back up and see if the clam simply got accustomed to high DKH and I've upset it by lowering it, might also throw the egg-crate back on it to be sure the damsel isn't buggin' the poor thing.

 

[Scdell]

Good luck! Your posts contradict. And you didn't know what type of clam you bought when you bought it. You can't always put what you want in a tank because it's what you want. You have to take into account what the tank will support. Inhabitants, etc,etc.

 

[xjiang7]

For what I understand a reef aquarium needs to be cycled and the “ugly phase” is not due to neglect of husbandry but the nature process of blooms of different bacteria/algae and reaching their balance. Those bacteria are essential to process tank waste dynamically which can’t be replaced by changing water or reducing the amount of food you fed. Also if you do that they will still happen but at a slower speed. I would suggest keep the fish in tank and feed it daily with small amount of food. Here are pictures of my tank from day one to current seven months, at which point you should able to see coraline algae taking over

 

[PocketClam]

Good luck! Your posts contradict. And you didn't know what type of clam you bought when you bought it. You can't always put what you want in a tank because it's what you want. You have to take into account what the tank will support. Inhabitants, etc,etc.

The owner didn't know either, hence contacting the expert, once again I never stated what you feel "contradicts" and I have no idea what you read or how you read it, but understand if you do not want to re-read a lengthy-op.
Anyway thank you for the well-wishes, like I said if things continue as they have been for the last few weeks I'll be taking it back to systems I know can better support it.

 

[hart24601]

I think you are on the right track with raising nutrients, don't go crazy, just detectable nitrate and phosphate which it sounds like you might be doing already. Aside from that the best advise I can give is give it as much light as you can, if already doing that just don't fuss with it. I know it's hard, but it only makes things worse (unless you know a fish it picking at it). It will either make it in there or it wont, clams do strange things for a couple days sometimes, but they will come out of it or they wont. Not very satisfying answer I know, but that has been my experience. I have never had success with FW dipping or anything else treating clams, just worrying about them!

 

[freshy&salty]

Well Im no clam expert but from what Im reading there isnt really anything wrong. " no signs of bleaching or browning, no signs of predation; ie. no bite marks, no pyramid snails, no bristleworms". To me it sounds like youre doing most the aggravating. If it aint broke, dont fix it. I say leave it alone and just watch it. 3 days is nothing in terms of sea life. Ive got a few coral and a couple fishes. 3 of the zoa colonies are all basically in the same area of the tank, been there over a year. They all have great color, pretty great growth, full and healthy looking, but I swear 1 of them is bipolar. It will literally stay closed for a day or 2 randomly every couple weeks while the 2 others (none of the other coral) dont show any signs of distress. Day or 2 later it opens up wide and youd never know it was having issues. Its been that way since their first week I got them. Point being, if it seems healthy in every other way, its probably fine.
I do agree with the others, your rock work is suspiciously clean for 6 months in? Personally, it sounds like youre doing way to much for such a young tank. Cycling should take you through the 3 or 4 stages of "uglies" which is the stages of beneficial bacteria building up. 6 months in you should be starting to have to scrape coraline off glass and your rocks should be almost a greenish red turning purplish. My feeling is you stalled your cycle by adding CUC and fish a little later.
Without knowing anything about your tank, size, how you cycled, water sources, light schedule, filtration, flow, test methods, cleaning and WC methods (just going off the OP) its pretty hard to say. Your water quality does seem fine but your rocks definitely dont match. I would give it time and just watch. Definitely no more tweezers or cages. Keep your params stable, high or low, stability is more important and it should "come around". You did mention a new light, maybe dial down the intensity a bit and slowly ramp up. Better to start to little and increase then to burn and try to cool.
Definitely keep us updated.

 

[PocketClam]

Clam has been open the last two days as if nothing ever happened. It's also pretty high up in the tank to get the most light possible, only about 4-5" from the surface.

Doesn't hurt to give more details:

I cycled using dry rock, Tim's, ghost feeding and just waiting for nitrate to test out and ammonia to go away

I do about 15-20% waterchanges weekly using reef crystals and distilled water

Filter is the all-in-one portion of the 12g atoll, have a bunch of matrix and some no3out by bright well alongside two layers of filterfloss and 1/3 the recommended amount of phosguard and purigen [and a good bit of BRS lignite] (since the tank isn't heavily stocked). (100gph sicc nano return)

Turnover is about 350 gallons per hour including return and powerhead, so about 30x.

Schedule is BRS AB+ for Prime HD with 45min ramp up, 5.5 hr peak, and then about two hour ramp-down with some blues at around 30% for a few hours during the evening/night.

I test with salifert a couple times a week and dose seachem two part alongside Red Sea coral AB to keep calcium, alk, and nutrients up.

The rockwork and cycle has been interesting, imported a couple types of algae and have had a couple big blooms which tend to die back from lack of nutrients, or at least that's my best guess. Had one bloom of dusty green algae which is still around and mostly visible at night under dimmer lighting. One massive bloom of heavy-rhizomed brown algae which totally took over anywhere shaded and then vanished, then most recently had a bad outbreak of chyrsophytes which I used H202 and toothbrush-scrubbing to eliminate.

Never really went through any super-ugly phases even when nitrate got over 20ppm during the initial cycle.


My phone does a poor job even with 10k white balance of capturing reds and greens, the clam actually has allot of pink and dark red in the mantle...

 

[keithfish1]

It said you have had this clam for a year and a half. Please explain.

Reread the first paragraph. There is your explanation.

 

[hart24601]

Really it looks good, and based off your initial post you have done research on all the things to look out for. That photo in particular it looks great, "fluffy" mantle (when they start to die seems to get thin, but it's hard to explain), great extension and good color in the center of the mantle. Only thing more is if you can see white growth at the top of the shell. EDIT: You said can see growth already, my bad. Looks good!

 

[PocketClam]

Thin as in poor extension of the mantle or thin as in the flesh itself becoming less full or I guess translucent? Always like to add to the list of things to look out for ^^

 

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[hart24601]

Thin as in poor extension of the mantle or thin as in the flesh itself becoming less full or I guess translucent? Always like to add to the list of things to look out for ^^

The flesh itself becoming less full, it will also start to flutter in the current more. I have seen this proceeding gradual mantel retraction and eventual gaping. It's pretty subtle, but if you keep and sadly watch a few die off you start to notice stuff like that. Doesn't happen all the time, but I have seen it quite a bit.

 

[PocketClam]

I'll definitely keep an eye out, this particular animal has always had a few areas of the mantle which are somewhat translucent. Under the radions at the LFS it almost caused it to look opalescent.
Oddly enough the main reason I contacted the folks in Queensland was the animal being sold as a crocea Maxima hybrid. The breeders weren't convinced to say the least, but did admit it has irregular eye patterns and an oddly teardrop/fat based shell with bizarre colorations on the fringes of the mantle. That said neither of us could really find any proof such animals actually exist, so we decided it was just allot of very strange characteristics lumped together in the same Tahitian Maxima (that much was certain from the bleached-white shell lol...)

So the mantle itself kind of becomes weaker and gets blown around in flow more, and/or just doesn't extend as far? Or do you mean it becomes even more transparent and thin than it already is?

 

[Neoalchemist]

Why are you running phosphate removal media? How did you battle chrysophytes and not learn that chrysophytes are caused by low or no nutrients?
You are phosphate limited. Your live rock is clean because from a nutrient standpoint the tank is an under water desert. It needs live stock. First thing I would do is put a piece of real, old, grungy live rock in the tank. Maybe buy a couple of coral colonies that are attached to decent sized pieces of established live rock. That will help get some positive chemical cues into the water.

 

[hart24601]

I'll definitely keep an eye out, this particular animal has always had a few areas of the mantle which are somewhat translucent. Under the radions at the LFS it almost caused it to look opalescent.
Oddly enough the main reason I contacted the folks in Queensland was the animal being sold as a crocea Maxima hybrid. The breeders weren't convinced to say the least, but did admit it has irregular eye patterns and an oddly teardrop/fat based shell with bizarre colorations on the fringes of the mantle. That said neither of us could really find any proof such animals actually exist, so we decided it was just allot of very strange characteristics lumped together in the same Tahitian Maxima (that much was certain from the bleached-white shell lol...)

So the mantle itself kind of becomes weaker and gets blown around in flow more, and/or just doesn't extend as far? Or do you mean it becomes even more transparent and thin than it already is?

It's not something I would worry too much about, it's really if you just notice mantle changes over time. I do mean it becomes more thin than it already is, just looks less fluffy to me when it happens and it will fold over more in current. I have not noticed it becoming more transparent although the center of the mantle will get that way. That is the 1st sign I have a sick clam, and if it stops or doesn't attach in the case of small maximas. Later then it stops extending.

But again, don't stress over that, the photo looks good, and it's more changes over time if you notice it. It's not like 'oh no the mantle ruffled in the water!', it's more like huh, the tissue looks thinner and despite no other changes the mantle now is always folding over in the water where it didn't before.

IME there isn't anything you can do to cure a sick clam anyway, so not much need to stress over it.

 

[PocketClam]

I did actually read that they're caused by low nutrients and they're gone now because I brought them up, I didn't start with live rock and don't really plan on adding any as I've no interest in dealing with hitchhikers. I'm running exceedingly low quantities of phos removal media because the pellet food I use is high in phosphates and phosguard is known for keeping phosphates down, but not eliminating them unlike GFO or more aggressive media's

 

[Neoalchemist]

I did actually read that they're caused by low nutrients and they're gone now because I brought them up, I didn't start with live rock and don't really plan on adding any as I've no interest in dealing with hitchhikers. I'm running exceedingly low quantities of phos removal media because the pellet food I use is high in phosphates and phosguard is known for keeping phosphates down, but not eliminating them unlike GFO or more aggressive media's

A bed of clams can be used as an effective water filter. That should give an indicator as to how much nutrients they consume. The natural reef is clean water with daily currents that bring massive amounts of plankton and nutrients. Without those daily feedings, in an area that does not receive these periodic boosts of nutrients there would be no reef in that location. Corals, especially bivalves can not survive indefinitely on the production of their zooxanthellae alone. They will slowly starve.

 

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[Neoalchemist]

There's a bit of confusion here, tridacna can survive on the zooxanthellae. They don't need plankton to survive. They can absorb ammonia/phosphorus through pinocytosing microvillous epidermal cells directly from the water column. I prefer not having a uln tank while keeping tridacna

No confusion, my point is that without the natural current supplementing them they need at least some nutrients to thrive. Notice I used the term thrive not survive. I also personally believe that all if not most of the reef needs at least some chemical cues from other reef life to flourish. But that is unsubstantiated opinion based on logic and observation. You too can survive on protein alone... but.