Clam spawn
 

Ugh. Going to be a longgg night. Came downstairs to feed fish and found a white tank. My paisley/teardrop maxima was spawning (still is, dang they go for a long time - 2 hours - hope it stops soon).

Water change ... new carbon ... skimmer set to ultra wet .. new filter sock ... and scooping out the gunk as it accumulates (imagine a fried egg being blended and then poured into your tank).

2 hours in the water is noticeably clearer but has a long way to go. I just wish the clam would .. um ... stop. I actually considered removing the clam at one point.

At least now I know for sure it was clam spawn that happened this time last year. What has me on pins and needles is that I lost 4 fish in last year's spawn event. So far no signs of distress and man I'm hoping for the best.

can you take some pictures of this action ?

or is it just like wayne shang's ?

I thought about it but went into full damage-control mode just on account of that last year's event was a little devastating. The lights are off now so there's not much to take a picture of. Sorry!

Initially the turbidity was so bad you could not see rock 4" away from the glass. The clam itself sort of squeezes itself and out shoots a white cloud from the exhalant siphon. Looks exactly like Coral Snow being shot out of a syringe.

did you ever try collecting a small sample and try to settle it ?

hmmmm wonder if you could make clam baby juice as expensive as cow baby juice. My uncle in Italy has a farm and he sells bull spunk for 1,000 a shot almost

Bummer! :sad:
Not really something to look forward to every year is it Tony? Although you can take consolation in the fact that you're making your clams happy.
Good luck and I hope everything works out ok.

I hope things are looking better this morning Tony. The idea of a clam spawn sounded neat at first but after you mentioned issues last year, I hope everyone made it through unscathed.

Waiting for the good news. Hope the cleanup was a success.

Ugh!!!

Me too! Go Tony go!!

Looks like everyone made it through the night, the water is starting to clear. Breathing a huge sigh of relief but still kicking off a water change this morning as the water has a oily consistency to it and the skimmer is having a little trouble producing foam.

In all fairness last year's spawning was the first spawning I ever lost fish to. I'm guessing it was an O2 depletion issue or maybe the oily consistency coated their gills and they had trouble breathing. Either way it seems like water changes and lots of carbon and the earlier the better seems to be helpful in clearing the hurdle.