Chad Eicher
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New Maxima clam.**need help**!
- Thread starter Chad Eicher
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The white dots look like air bubbles being produced from algae growing on the shell and not parasitic snails.
These are pyramid snails:
The clam you have is a wild collected Maxima from Tahiti. I helped set up the collection station there about 10 years ago. I and my partner collected many of these clams, however in recent years he has been concentrating on fish collection and turned over the clam collection to local divers in the remote islands of French Polynesia. Correct collection is difficult and time consuming. These divers collect the clams for food and ship them dry from the remote Islands to Tahiti. This severely stresses the clams and allows the Perkinsus parasite that resides in them to take over and this is why you see the retracted mantle- a sign that shows it will usually die soon. We tried many treatments including freshwater dips to no avail. I stopped importing and selling wild collected clams several years ago and only deal with cultured clams now because they are not infected and are hardy, even small ones in the 1.5 to 3 inch range ( BTW they do not need to be fed, but do well with some nitrate and phosphate). If you see a clam larger than 4-4.5 inches it is always wild collected and I would strongly advise against buying it.
In the wild, Maxima clams are found by the hundreds of millions in the remote Islands of French Polynesia. Some small islands are made from clam shells! The clams are found on rock outcroppings about 1 to 4 feet below the surface under intense tropical sunlight and with strong water flow. They are embedded in rock and must be carefully chiseled out, a very difficult task because of the intense flow. Often they are found in cooler water areas. One day we collected them in temps in the low to mid 60s, and BTW there were plenty of stony corals including Acros in the same area. The typical wild collected Maxima from Tahiti is about 5 to 6 inches, by law they can not be exported smaller than 4.5 inches. I met with the President and legislators there to get the law changed for smaller cultured clams. A 6 inch clam is likely 6 to 8 years old and will often not adapt well to captive life under artificial lighting, less flow, and warmer temps.
If you are interested, here's more info and photos: https://pacificeastaquaculture.com/pages/coral-and-clam-farming
These are pyramid snails:
The clam you have is a wild collected Maxima from Tahiti. I helped set up the collection station there about 10 years ago. I and my partner collected many of these clams, however in recent years he has been concentrating on fish collection and turned over the clam collection to local divers in the remote islands of French Polynesia. Correct collection is difficult and time consuming. These divers collect the clams for food and ship them dry from the remote Islands to Tahiti. This severely stresses the clams and allows the Perkinsus parasite that resides in them to take over and this is why you see the retracted mantle- a sign that shows it will usually die soon. We tried many treatments including freshwater dips to no avail. I stopped importing and selling wild collected clams several years ago and only deal with cultured clams now because they are not infected and are hardy, even small ones in the 1.5 to 3 inch range ( BTW they do not need to be fed, but do well with some nitrate and phosphate). If you see a clam larger than 4-4.5 inches it is always wild collected and I would strongly advise against buying it.
In the wild, Maxima clams are found by the hundreds of millions in the remote Islands of French Polynesia. Some small islands are made from clam shells! The clams are found on rock outcroppings about 1 to 4 feet below the surface under intense tropical sunlight and with strong water flow. They are embedded in rock and must be carefully chiseled out, a very difficult task because of the intense flow. Often they are found in cooler water areas. One day we collected them in temps in the low to mid 60s, and BTW there were plenty of stony corals including Acros in the same area. The typical wild collected Maxima from Tahiti is about 5 to 6 inches, by law they can not be exported smaller than 4.5 inches. I met with the President and legislators there to get the law changed for smaller cultured clams. A 6 inch clam is likely 6 to 8 years old and will often not adapt well to captive life under artificial lighting, less flow, and warmer temps.
If you are interested, here's more info and photos: https://pacificeastaquaculture.com/pages/coral-and-clam-farming
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Huskymaniac
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Unfortunately I think your clam was gone before you bought it.
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