QTing Clam for Pyramid Snails

[Shigshwa]

I purchased a small 2 inch Crocea to replace the one I recently lost. Shockingly, I found a single pyramid snail, along with egg sacs. Good thing I noticed before placing into the DT! Now, I'm on a QT journey to eradicate the pests. Looks like I'm gonna be using the good ol' bucket for a tank again.

Gonna use store bought SW for water changes. PAR is 180 at the bottom of the bucket, reading 400 near the surface. I will be implementing some sort of floating basket to elevate the clam for more light.

My regiment will be a daily brushing of the clam, if possible. I'll continue until either I don't spot any more after some weeks, or I mess up somewhere and the poor guy dies.

Wish me luck.

 

[DSC reef]

Keep an eye on the clam, check the underside and near the mantle edges. Try and check after the lights are out for a few hours. Also, check your snails in the display. That's how are ours came in.

 

[Yuki Rihwa]

May I ask where did you order/buy your clam? Local fish store or Online store?
I would stop buying clams from that store. Good luck!

 

[DSC reef]

For what it's worth, I've had clams from top vendors that came in with pyramid snails. It happens even with the best places.

 

[Shigshwa]

It was from a LFS. It's possible that they got them from a frag, the clams were sitting alongside the LPS colonies. I typically trust them, but now it's starting to make me wonder if my little mishap was the work of snails in the first place? So far though, I have not been able to spot any from their clams, until now.

Anyways, I tipped them off on it, hopefully they put their large Maximas into QT too.

 

[Tahoe61]

A method I have used is placing the clam on a pedestal, PVC pipe filled with sand. Manually remove clams and inspect for pyramids.
If you have snails the Pyramids are just going to move on to the snails for food.

 

[Shigshwa]

I actually did do that, because I was using a frag tile beforehand, and it attached to it. I did not want to be snipping byssal threads all the time, so it's now suspended above a bit of PVC.

 

[Shigshwa]

Uh oh... I may have messed up. I used freshly mixed SW to fill the QT up, and a bacterial bloom happened while I was at work. I returned home to see the clam roughed up, gaping. The ammonia test showed 0, so could it have been oxygen deprivation from that bloom? I felt like I would have had the same thing happen again with a full water change of freshly mixed water again, so I tried using tank water, parameters matched to the freshly mixed water, of course. No bacterial bloom has happened yet, fingers crossed that the tank water already has the bacterial balance sorted out.

Now, the clam looks to be in a bad state, but doesn't seem to be near death. It was in great health when purchased, it reacted more or less as if it were plucked from the ocean. Today though, it seems sluggish...