Clam troubles
 

Just wondering how many of you all out there are having or have had clam troubles recently?

nope, clams are all happy as, well, you know!

heard lots of problems in Edmonton recently between 3 people at a lfs they have lots 46 clams or something. They are saying it is some parasite that came in with a new shipment or something like that. I have 11 and have only lost a clam to a filefish.

More then a couple here too, except the one I got from you Wes and ones from Globaldesigns.

I've lost a couple over the last few months as you know. And now my teardrop maxima seems to be on the way out.:sad: Not sure why?

I've notice the clam incidents lately and have been keeping a close eye on mine. So far so good. I have not added any clams since last spring I think?

Ya but like I said before Kien you could make a rock grow:lol:

lost one last month, it had some small hyroid-y looking things on it. I think they irritated the mantle enough that it retracted and wasn't getting enough light. Anyways it croaked. Today I find another one with two aiptasia living inside the shell at one of the ends. I scraped them out with a needle and hopefully that will work, it had its mantle retracted too.

Probly not the info you're looking for but I've had a lot of caffeine :razz:

yup heard the same thing that its a supposedly parasite came in on a shipment.....i know about a dozen people who lost clams recently some have lost quite a few and are asking the same questions. will we ever know??

**sigh** Ill come clean, I may have possibly influcened this via a private message..

Wont name drop, but picked up a new clam off a fellow reefer.. well established 8" Squamosa.. here is the story (hums fresh prince while typing)

Time for story by picture...

Go to get clam at a gas station in NW, I meet him for pick up, put it into heatbox in car as its -40'c outside, at styrafoam box with heatpacks.. get home, check it, slightly pulled back, put lid on, put in tank floating to acclimate water..

http://pqq88a.blu.livefilestore.com/...627.jpg?psid=1

acclimating and slowly adding water to get it used to my parameters... left lid on so I wouldnt shock it..

http://pqq88a.blu.livefilestore.com/...628.jpg?psid=1

once lights are out, put it in tank, has no negative reactions (about 1.5hours in bucket).. check 2 hours later, still fine.. go to bed. Wake up.. look at it, still fine maybe even showing signs of returning to full extension.. go to work for 12 hours.. come home to this..

http://pqq88a.blu.livefilestore.com/...635.jpg?psid=1

very very retracted into shell..

stuff spewing out the back...

http://pqq88a.blu.livefilestore.com/...636.jpg?psid=1

its really pulled back and I can see stuff in its mouth up front that doesnt look happy.. checked parameters.. everything looks to be in check.. nothing else in the tank seems affected.. all the zoas are good, leathers are good with good polyp extension, sps is fine, frogspawn is happy and hammer is happy..
two more macro pictures..

http://pqq88a.blu.livefilestore.com/...638.jpg?psid=1

mouth and its ejecting its intake of food which I understand is a shock reaction.. similar to some eating disorders humans suffer..

http://pqq88a.blu.livefilestore.com/...639.jpg?psid=1

im new to clams but read alot.. I know its not supposed to go that far passed the mantel or its under lying tissue..

SOOOOO... checked tank, no param problems to be heard of..
Flow good..
Problem noted approx 12 hours after last known goodtime.. aka put in tank after purchase from another member..
Secretly watched fish from distance.. no one nipping or even going near it for that case..
Crabs only stay on the rock unless they fall.. I apparently bought the allergic to sand crabs.. its true, there is a grave yard to one side of tank of preworn shells..
Turned off daylight lamps and left only acitnic lights on incase this just light shock..

anything else you may know there fellow Clam gurus..



What do I do if anything!!

Had 14 or 15 this time last year, most of them long term survivors ... now down to 5. That's probably enough said right there.

Actually no .. I'll keep talking for 32 seconds more. It's unfortunately not surprising. Clam death has got to be one of the most contagious things, they literally have no backbone (har har har) to stand up to peer pressure of dieing. "Come on, everyone else is doing it .. " / "Ok Ok, get off my back <dies>"

I think what happens is a sick clam releases a lot of clam-specific pathogens after it dies and they find the next host as soon as they can. Or it could be as simple as when one kicks off, it's a bioload spike but thing is you'd think you'd notice other things suffering too - usually serialized-clam-death is rather clam specific.

Unfortunately in my case I would say not all were inexplicable (I can think of specific causes in at least 2 or 4 cases). Although the rest were totally inexplicable.

I've been having problems lately too. I lost 5 of 6... Thankfully my favorite is the lone survivor. The ones that I saw looked very similar to your pics. I had 2 left, brought them both up to my other tank, freshwater dipped them for 25 minutes, and then acclimated them to the tank. I lost one a week or two later, then the other has looked fine since.... Maybe a month ago? Try the fresh water dip... But more importantly, cross your fingers! Good luck.

Add me to the list fishytime, as you know. I have had clam issues too.. I lost all four of my clams. two teardrop maximas and two croceas.

There were no symptoms from the clams until they were too far deteriorated to do anything about it.
Something went at them from the bottom and sides eating away at them from the foot or flesh on the side when the clam opens. T
Their mantle on top would open and close like normal, as well as have full extension. No gaping, until the day of full deterioration when you could see a huge hole right through the side of the clam down to the bottom, but even then, the mantle is still mostly extended, but you can see all the muscous and what not out of the area that is disolving away.

No pyramid snails, no bristle worms, hermits or other snails on it until the day after the mantle stops opening at all. Then they go after it. (I only waited that long for the one clam because I couldn't remove it from my system without my RBTA being dishomed.

The only indication I had of anything wrong in the tank was how my corals were reacting. My blueberry encrusting monti lost it's color very quickly as did my purple passion. My Pocci kept it's polyps in and xenia was all wilted and closed up looking.

Test kit parameters all came back with nitrates, nitrites and ammonia at 0, ph 8.4, dkh 8, sg 1.025, calcium 420, magnesium 1350.

All other corals were acting just fine, even the anemones had no issues.

Within less than a week after the death of the last clam, a 10% water change and swaping out the chemipure for new stuff, all my corals are back to normal, and the colors of the ensrusting montis have come back in greater brilliance than they were before the deaths and are growing faster too.

Had I not been paying attention to my other corals I wouldn't have known there was something going on with my clams until it was too late and they were all polluting the tank at the same time. With the exception of the one, I removed all the others before they got the chance to hit full deterioration. FW Dippingg also didn't help these clams.

No Kody(sp?) this thread wasnt about you and your perfectly timed PM....

I've read and heard about some stories lately and my recent woes have got me wondering what really happened or is happening, both in others cases and in mine.....

8 clams in three weeks for me......in one case I think it was me, because I bumped it really hard while cleaning the glass the rest is.....well.....the point of the thread....

I have three trains of thought.....

I had noticed that my coral beauty was payin alot of attention to pretty much all of my clams....I never thought much of it because I had a couple fish in V1 that would "peck" and never really do any damage.....then, a couple of the clams started staying retracted all the time....this is when I thought that the angel was causing the damage....about a week later there the first clam died.....a couple days later a second clam started looking like it was gonna go and I started moving all the clams that I could fit into the small tank in....the second clam died and its been one death every couple days since even after being "rescued" from the angel(of Death)....

ok so the fact that the clams kept dieing got me thinking that my tank just simply wasnt ready for clams yet.....it has only been six monthes since the crash..... I felt I was pushing it putting them back in the tank but I felt like I imposed on my clamsitter for far too long as it was....so tonight I think, Ok I'll PM Greg, to see how the clam I sold him was doing....he replies that it just recently started looking not so hot......

so now Im wondering if it is something else, like what Tony described or perhaps something like what E-towners are describing???


Im really just hoping that everyone who has had problems recently will post their experiences

I don't know much about clams but when I was talking with Doug earlier, I pretty much said exactly what Tony said in the above quote. Not sure if that's possible or not but it sure seems like it.

How do you know there were no bristle worms? they are really good at hiding and they might have eaten your clam and gone in hiding?

Also, what was the source of the pollution if the ammonia, nitritres and nitrates were all to 0?

When all my clam deaths occured there was no sign from any of my other coral AT ALL. Parameters were all good, skimmers were not going totally nuts. I did notice that the first one to go in the latest string was looking fab, I had to move it and when I did there were several Bristol worm around it foot and inside. Pulled as many out as I could but it was just a matter of time and it was gone. All the rest just started not open up as much day after day until BAM GONE.

I think the one I got from Doug is not going to make it as it is really not looking any better.:sad:

A couple more thoughts. Bristle worms are almost certainly innocent of causing clam death in most if not all cases .. but they will move in quickly to scavenge once a clam starts declining. Ie., they may deal the finishing blow (or just clean up after the fact) but they're not usually the first-strike.

Also, I see a LOT of clams on the sand bed in tanks. If you see clams in the wild it is only the sand specific species (Hippopus, derasa, maybe squamosa) out in the open like that. Maxima and crocea are almost always buried to the mantle in rock. These leaves their rather large byssal glands protected (which is a weakly defended point of entry). So maybe I should take back what I just said about bristle worms and for that matter, brittle stars and copepods and who knows what else, if they gain point of entry via the byssal gland, the clam can get irritated in my experience, a clam doesn't stay irritated for very long before its health is affected.

Also in my experience they are hugely sensitive to temperature swings.

It could just be rotten luck and coincidence since they are basically very sensitive to a lot of different things and then one thing just leads to another. It sucks.

I'm very curious how many clams make it past 5-6 years in captivity.

That is part of what I am finding rather strange. Especially with the tank parameters. I tested three times in a row to make sure I was doing it right and with a new test kit as well as I thought it was strange as well.

Like Grizz, my skimmer wasn't going out of whack either.

In terms of the bristle worms, when I removed the clams from the tank, I did so a couple hours after lights out when all my bristle worms come out to play, and once I had the clam in my hands used a flashlight to look it over from the tank bottom up, out and into a tub of freshwater to kill anything inside to see if there was anything hanging out inside eating them. Nothing came out of the shell or fell off dead in the water. Not even any snails.

Even throughout the day I was checking around the clam and nothing was crawling near it.. I have had other corals dying in my tank before and the BW's are all over it as soon as it starts going, lights on or off.

I also keep my clams, that are on the sand bed on a pedal disc so it can bore into something if it wants. Whatever it is also hit my clam that was attached to the rocks and not the sand at all.

I am finding it really interesting that a lot of people are having the same issues with their clams all at the same time.

i think contagious is a good theme to start with here and for the ones i know who are having issues some of them are the cleanest tanks i know of and same thing water parameters are spot on and always are.

i dont doubt the bristle worms power but i had lots of clams and they never bothered mine.i bet theyd be on it for an essy meal if the chance arouse but they have plenty of food to get without having to fight through a clam to munch.

my buddys clams are looking good one day then not hot the next and dead the day after that.he lost all but 2 of ten since december im trying to help him out and all we can come up with is they all came from this city or close to. i heard from someone else then what wes heard about the "parasites"
possibly being to blame as everyone around here is losing them.

kinda glad i gave up the clam business while it was good :) sorry to hear about your clams doug especially after you waited and took so much care into saving them:(

egads, it sounds like the beginnings of an epidemic. Perhaps we should be asking what the people who are not losing clams are doing differently - ie, are the clams that are not spontaneously melting all living in tanks that haven't had any livestock added since before the Edmonton outbreak?

If you've got clams doing a Jonestown impression in tanks that haven't had any water from the LFS supply chain added since before this became a wide-spread problem, then it's likely not a mysterious new pathogen.

Fingers crossed for my two clams. One of mine sulked for a couple of weeks after I changed my bulbs and ballasts, but it has come back strong.

I could not agree more, I have had up to 6 clams on the bottom of a shallow tank that was crawling with bristol worms and never lost a clam to the worms.

I didn't read any of the posts, but I'll just chime into say that I lost one about 2-3 weeks ago. Had the clam for probably 5ish years.

I've lost 6 out of my 7 within the last 12 months. 3 maxima, 2 crocea and a squamosa. The survivor is a derasa. 3 of the clams that I lost I have had for around 5 years the others were 2-3 years. In my case I suspect either a pathogen or a species of pyram snails that prefers snails but will also go after clams. I took this picture of an trochus snail being attacked by them in my tank. The odd thing is that I could never find more than 1 or 2 of these snails going after the underside of the mantle of my clams and none were ever on the bottom opening. I'd see them here and there on the glass and other hard substrates in the tank but only occasionally near a clam mantle. As you can see in the picture they are swarming the trochus snail yet none are going after the derasa which would have been an easier target. Whenever I saw them doing this I'd siphon them out. I guess even a single one of these snails can take down a clam if they attack it often enough.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1388.jpg

Further to my post, I didn't notice any problems with any corals, nems or fish while this was happening. Also, no abnormal skimmer activity, and the parameters were all good. Thsi all started to happen shortly after I added my blue squammy... which is now my only remaining survivor.

Here's a post I started on the same topic... check it out if you like. Much of the same info in there, but maybe some new stuff?


http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=70898

thanks for the link doch.....just re-read the thread and I think my case is different from the vast majority of everyone who chimed in and described what happened to them.....most peeps are losing them over monthes or a year.....I have lost 8 in three weeks....Funky Fish said the he knew of a few others that had multiple deaths, but no one else responded after that....

Hey Doug, I really think this clam is on a one way trip out. It has recessed even further into the shell:sad: no snail or worms in sight in the QT

For the pyram snails you can use a filter sock to catch them over time.

My clam is gone. Removed it last night. Got a bad case of the tank stink when I got home from work.. so less than 36 hours and he was gone. Should I have been worried from the start when I was transfering him from the bucket to the tank after acclimation.. he didnt move at all or respond to the light? I didnt think anything of it till last night talking to a friend.

i had the same trouble lost a crap load of clams from
5 crocea's
2 baby derasa's
2 Maxima's

and now that you mention it I remeber seeing thou little snails on one of the snails and i used filter socks and now the 3 squamos'a are doing excellent.

I've been running filtersocks steady for the past 5 years and I still daily see the little snails on my glass. +/-2000gph goes down my overflow through a 100 micron sock.

But then again it could also have been a pathogen that my most recent addition (the squamosa) brought in that killed my clams.

It is definatley a clamademic!!!

As Doug and I feared the clam I got from him did not make it last night, thought it was turning around but then late last night to all just went to mush.

And now to top that off the other big clam that I got from Doug almost a year ago is dieing too.

I dont care what anyone says bristol worms KILL!! I have been checking all the remaining clams for the last week to see if there are any of those snails anywhere and NONE. BUT there where BW's I pulled 2 off both my larger clams, the one from Doug and the one from Rick.

Now a perfectly healthy clam is dieing and I DO attibute it all to BW's at least for the ones that have been in my tank for more then 3 months


PS DOUG CLEAR YOUR INBOX DUDE :biggrin:

should have gotten a pic of the worms, there are alot of types of bristle worms some are harmless and have been found with bellies of algae some have been seen killing fish........if your clam is in the sand it wouldnt be surprising to pull a clam out and find some bristle worms as they are nocturnal and hide in the sand and rock throughout the day:):)

is anyone watching these clams through out the night and early morning??

i also find it hard to believe that everyone is having bristle morn hunger attacks at the same time on the same species when they have alot of extra food around anyways.


has anyone been having clam troubles before winter???

another idea would be for if anyones dies to diesect it and see whats going on inside.....whether its being eaten or some other explanation:):)

You'll need a strong stomach. I do this for all my clams that I remove but you need to be a biologist or pathologist to really understand what you're seeing.

Greg I do sympathize but you are jumping to the wrong conclusion. Bristle worms (and for pity's sake, EVERYONE - PLEASE STOP CALLING THEM BRISTOL WORMS, for crying out loud! Geez! Sorry I just can't take it anymore!! BRISTLE WORMS!!! As in, the bristles like that on a broom. Bristol is a city in England!!) are scavengers.

Any scavenger will move in and possibly deal the final blow to a dieing animal. But does that make them the cause of death?

I'm sorry but I'm compelled to share one key learning in almost 15 years of keeping tridacnid clams: they don't turn around once past a point. They simply don't have the auto-immune response that other organisms might have. If you or I were tired or distressed and our immune response was compromised, we'd probably get the sniffles or a head cold. A clam on the other hand ... well that's just basically it. They CAN turnaround from some things but for the most part by the time you have realized something is amiss, it's usually well past the point of no return.

I don't mean to be mean here but you have to consider a few things. 1) You've added a lot of clams in the past 6 to 12 months from many different sources. If a pathogenic agent was introduced along the way there is no way to trace it back conclusively. 2) As I've stated MANY times before .... clam ailments are HUGELY contagious. I feel like a broken record but I'll say it again. Clam ailments are HUGELY contagious! All it takes is one clam that is compromised and your entire stock is at risk. It could have been something that affected one clam 6 to 8 months ago and the recent losses are simply the cascading-forward effects from that. 3) Clams are also hugely sensitive to, well, everything. Temperature, pH, Ca, Alk, heck even Mg levels, if any of these are not rock solid stable the clams are among the first to show it. Simply moving from one tank to another can be enough to kill them.

My point being basically that longevity of clams is dependent hugely on luck. It sucks but it's the reality. Sometimes a clam just dies. Every few years the clustering of clam deaths causes this kind of thread on the board because it's just human nature to want to pinpoint a single cause that we can all blame but the reality is it's probably a combination of rotten luck, coincidence, and the fact that we hobbyists don't tend to employ the strictest of cross-contamination-protocols.

^^+1. Gotta agree with that post. My Clams are doing great and have no problems with the BRISTLE worms that I have in my tank with the clams. Then again I haven't added any either and nor will I for awhile.

Then how do you explain how a perfectly healthy clam in the morning and for the last 6 month in my tank and how ever long in Dougs tank can be dead in less then 8 hrs? I have been checking all my clams an hr after the lights go out for creepy crawlies and last night there were 2 BRISTLE worms going for the bottom of my 2 biggest clams, not to mention NEITHER are on the sand bed. I got to all 4 of them before they could get into the clam but still one died. And again I said WTF!!

Um, hey Tony, hope you're having a great weekend buddy.

Just an FYI, this may be the Bristol worm that people are talking about? Nasty little buggers.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1296962229

i think what tony is saying is one of your new additions has brought in "the cold" and now they all are sick.....the healthy ones are either gonna fight it to a certain point and just die...... or possibly make it:):)

to keep some bristle worms off try putting your clam on a shelf from eggcrate untill you figure out whats going on:) good luck buddy sorry to hear about all the clams .....

Talk about creeper child in the front :neutral:.

Y'all crazy...
I could take a couple of fresh samples into the lab and try and culture them for some tests if Doug or you is willing to drop them off @ my house Tuesday night or Wed. morning?

I can't promise you anything but I would sure love to try:razz:?