Clam troubles

[christyf5]

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

[Delphinus]

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.

[doch]

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.

[Nebthet]

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.

[daniella3d]

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?

Originally Posted by Nebthet

no bristle worms, hermits or other snails on it until the day after the mantle stops opening at all.

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.

[The Grizz]

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.

[Delphinus]

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.

[Nebthet]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

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?

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.

[reefwars]

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

[asylumdown]

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.