Chokin on a turkey wing!

[Bax]

So I get up this morning, and the first thing I do is go donw stairs to the family room and switch on the actinics like always. The tank is filled with floating pepermint shrimp larva and silly me, I think what a great day this'll be.

Come home tonight and one of my four huge turkey wings (Arca zebra clams) is laid open and oozin goo! And I though I was goning to add so selected corals this weekend!

Not likely now!

What's up with that?!?!?

Is it impossible to keep these for long? Are all these turkies gona croak like the barnacles or is this an isolated mortality???

I liked that ol'turkey!

 

[boyooso]

I have bunches of them(20+)... and I have seen 1 go in about 10 months.

 

[hdtran]

How's your chemistry? Has your clam polluted your tank, or have all the critters decided to have chowder from the goo? I've lost a couple of the smaller bivalves (the dreaded mantis in action, I'm sure), but with no deleterious effects on the tank chemistry.

 

[Bax]

I glad to hear you have only lost one or two. Then there's hope for the rest of my turkies. I had a few small kinda flat oysters die off. The big rounder oysters seem to be doing well. I target feed the bigger oysteres and turky wings cyclopeze (sp?) once a week and they seem to respond. And the mantis has now officially wiped out my barnacle population. Time to get himout before he wipes out my cleanup crew.

I think the chem held up well. I found it pretty quickly. It was fine Friday morning and I pulled it out at about 5:30 PM that night. My nitrates are about 20+ ammo is 0. Nitrates have been as high as 40 until last week when they started to drop finally. The tanks been running for about 10 weeks wit the TBS in for four weeks now. I cycled it with 10 pounds of Tonga LR from the LFS and added 30 pounds of the TBS. So I think the tank is stable enough to handle the TW's passing.

 

[liverock]

????

????

I glad to hear you have only lost one or two. Then there's hope for the rest of my turkies. I had a few small kinda flat oysters die off. The big rounder oysters seem to be doing well. I target feed the bigger oysteres and turky wings cyclopeze (sp?) once a week and they seem to respond. And the mantis has now officially wiped out my barnacle population. Time to get himout before he wipes out my cleanup crew.

I think the chem held up well. I found it pretty quickly. It was fine Friday morning and I pulled it out at about 5:30 PM that night. My nitrates are about 20+ ammo is 0. Nitrates have been as high as 40 until last week when they started to drop finally. The tanks been running for about 10 weeks wit the TBS in for four weeks now. I cycled it with 10 pounds of Tonga LR from the LFS and added 30 pounds of the TBS. So I think the tank is stable enough to handle the TW's passing.

Something weird going on.....they are bulletproof, you can take one out of the water for days, put it back in and it will be ok, as they close so tight they hold enough water to survive.......I have seen them dry for more than a week, and come back....

Jewel clams are the same way....

Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com
:rollface: :rollface: :rollface:

 

[Bax]

Richard

Any suggestions? They all have seemed fine. I have seen a few small, light colored, snails in the tank even near the TW's but not in great numbers. And not swarming to the clams. Could these be pyramids? Do they occur in the Gulf?

Water prams are

Temp - 76F
SG - 1.022 - 24
Ammo - 0
Nitrite - <2
Nitrate - 20+
pH - 8.2 -8.3
using RO/DI water
top off is buffered with Kent's
make up is IO
I am running a 13" CPR AquaFuge and a CPR BakPak 2 skimmer

 

[liverock]

Richard

Any suggestions? They all have seemed fine. I have seen a few small, light colored, snails in the tank even near the TW's but not in great numbers. And not swarming to the clams. Could these be pyramids? Do they occur in the Gulf?

Water prams are

Temp - 76F
SG - 1.022 - 24
Ammo - 0
Nitrite - <2
Nitrate - 20+
pH - 8.2 -8.3
using RO/DI water
top off is buffered with Kent's
make up is IO
I am running a 13" CPR AquaFuge and a CPR BakPak 2 skimmer

Does he move when touched?

Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com
:rollface: :rollface: :rollface:

 

[Bax]

The dead one doesn't move.

The remaing ones all close up tight and hunker down to their attached rocks when touched or even approached quickly. So did the dead one right up until yesterday. It seemed finein the AM but was open and dead by the evening.

 

[liverock]

The dead one doesn't move.

The remaing ones all close up tight and hunker down to their attached rocks when touched or even approached quickly. So did the dead one right up until yesterday. It seemed finein the AM but was open and dead by the evening.

Old age<G>


Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com
:rollface: :rollface: :rollface:

 

[tonyh67]

Richard states above how hardy the turkey wing clams are, does that mean it is possible to remove them from the rock without killing them?

I cut and twisted two and laid them in the bank of the tank, will they die for certain? I know in the giant clam family you need to be extremely careful with the foot...same with these clams?

If or when they do die, should I remove them completely from the tank or can my 29 gallon handle the waste...they are about 3" long each?

 

[Bax]

I don't know about how well they handle re-attachment when removed, but I can tell you, your 29 can't process the waste. If they die, remove them ASAP.

 

[tonyh67]

I pulled them out the next day...the crabs showed up for a feast so I knew they were dead. I was not going to risk anything.

I think if you carefully cut the foot with a razor blade, they may survive...one so far has. The other two that were twisted off with the whole foot sticking to the rock died.

Probably my only complaint with TBS rock, too many clams...Richard should knock as many off as possbile before weighing and shipping.

They were okay at first, but as soon as you start adding corals they become a real nuisance...taking up valuable real estate and moving rock.

 

[Bax]

I still have three left, and yes I have to scape around them, but I still like'em. It always freeks people out when they see a "rock" start moving!

 

[Dazz]

I havnt lost a single one and I have probably at least 20, in addition to other spcies of muscles, clams and oysters. I also decided to see if a clam from the grocery store would survive in my tank, and so far so good. Going on 10 months. Great thing about his species is, they dig in the sand bed and constantly stir stuff up. I think I will grab a few more.

 

[Bax]

Cool! Is it a little neck or cherry stone? I like mine on the half shell with lot's of horse radish in the cocktail sauce ... just kidding.

I still have several of the oysters that have the pink flesh. But the mantis and oyster drills (welks) did in most of the flat oysters and only a few of those remain.

 

[Dazz]

little neck =)

I like mine steamed