Bleaching Maxima, Help

[Scoobaman17]

My prised maxima clam "the purple one in my gallery" has bleaching all over, .... the only things I can think of that coused it were; 1. My new dual 250 w reef stars, 2. and ovwer population of hair algae "dout it", and 3. a small electrical curent that i didn't notice till it cought on fire this past Friday. The calm seems to be doing fine though, responsive, extends, ect.. just lost a lto of it's magnificent coloring. Please if any one can help me becouse i havent had any luck elsewhere.

 

[birdie]

Well the only experience I have with bleached clams is to feed them, and they are slow to colorback up. I have purchased several of them bleached out for nothing and colored them back up to wonderful specimins. However I have never had success with a totally bleached or severly bleached specimin back to health. Anybody else?

Peace
Richard

 

[lt]

When I switched my lighting from 400w radiums to 400w Giesemanns my gold teardop severely bleached. I would say it was about 75% bleached at the worst point. It took over 7 months to regain it's zoox, it look s great now. Just give it some to time to recover, it should be fine

 

[jpg]

Its deffinitly your new lights. The clam senses the new light and releases its zooxanthea to accomidate for the increase or difference of light. Once the clam grows accustomed to the light it will slowly replenish its algae.

 

[firechild]

I'd be looking more at the leaking current. Clams can open and close in response to light and can therefore self acclimate to changes in lighting intensity. I have moved clams from 150W do 400W with only positive results.

On a side note, clams cannot recover from total bleaching, they can however recover if there is some zooxanthellae left.

 

[PSEUDOREEFER]

IME bleaching is mainly caused by rapidly increased temperature or prolonged high temperatures.

 

[Blackgagt1]

i don't know if anyone mentioned it but i can also be from having a lack of phosphates and nitrates in the aquarium. so you should start feeding phyto more freq.

this is all according to knop in his giant clams book.