Are tridacnids really delicate?

firechild

Premium Member
On Saturday night I returned from a month long trip to the GBR eager to see how much my corals had grown while I was away.
Unfortunately I came home to a rotten smelling cess pool that was once my pride and joy. All I could see through the thick layer of green on the glass was the white skeletons of my corals and 2 clownfish swimming round. There was a layer of white froth on the surface of the water and I realised that the return pump had stopped working. It is currently the middle of winter and I believe the temperature of my tank had dropped to under 10C. I assumed the worst and figured that everything had died so I began cleaning up the tank on the verge of selling everything off and restarting a tank at some stage in the future. As I cleaned the glass, I noticed that not 1 of my 7 clams were showing any signs of stress and were perfectly healthy. The water was about 14C when I got home which is still extremely cold for reef inhabitants.
This goes to show that a healthy clam can live through some pretty drastic changes and come through unscathed. I have always been a believer that clams are much tougher than many people give them credit for and this confirms it.
 
Glad to hear your clams are healthy. I've always said clams can be incredibly hardy if they are healthy to begin with. How are your clownfish doing? Were the lats in this tank? Hopefully they are alive and well...
 
sorry to hear about your tank. hope everything comes back around. i know the pain, had tank crash about two weeks ago.i think you are totally right about the clams. if they are healthy to start they are quit stronger then most think. problem is getting healthy clams.
 
PR,
Unfortunately the lats died only a few days after I left. They were in a separate tank where I was attempting to keep the water temp lower than in my reef tank.
 
Man, am sorry to hear about your tank. Was someone there taking care of things for you?

I also think if you get healthy clams from the beginning they will survive almost anything. I was reading a thread on clams direct forum about a cutomer that orders some clams and due to plane being growned, the clams arrived 42 hours later and are doing great.

Ron
 
Yeah, my sister was looking after the tank for me but didn't notice the pump had broken. When my dad got home (a couple of days before me), he noticed it was off and accidentally followed the wrong power cord so he thought I had deliberately unplugged the return pump.
 
Back
Top