Clam barely opening

[LBCBJ]

About a week ago I put an aquacultered 1.5" Maxima clam in my tank (I've had both croceas and maximas before). My water parameters are perfect, the clam is getting ample light from MH, and I've searched for parasites but cant find any. The clam is sitting on the sandbed on a thin custom made piece of LR to which it attached to within 2 days, yet the clam is barely opening (it has good reflexes though). During the day the mantle is barley extended mabey 1/8" and it almost completely closes at night (I have no fish that would pick at it). I'm stumped and hate to loose livestock, so hopefully someone can give some insight here.

 

[Jonviviano]

The store you purchased it at probably had it under lower light which it has acustomed to. What is the depth of your tank? lighting wattage? also i would give it time in the new tank. As long as it has good reflexes and good colors it will be fine.

 

[mbbuna]

Re: Clam barely opening

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7806668#post7806668 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by LBCBJ
(I have no fish that would pick at it).

Brent, let cover all the bases and work through this.

what fish do you have?

please list everything about your tank. lighting , filtration, how you maintain Ca/Alk(you know the drill, tell us everything)

and a pic speaks a thousand words

 

[LBCBJ]

Right now I only have a Swalesi Basslet

Tank is 18g (18" H)
- AquaC Remora
- Phosban Reactor with Rowaphos and Rowacarbon
- 150w DE MH w/ Phoenix 14k - 6" above the water

Calc - 420
Alk- 8
PO4- undetecable
NO3 - ~2
pH - 8.2-8.4
SG -1.026
Waterflow is two maxi 600's w/ hydorflow

I have several acro colonies that are doing excellent and growing suprisingly fast, even a few wild colonies, so I don't understand what's going on with the clam. I should note that the clam was under 400w 20k XM's, and several times I have seen a brown stringy material coming out of the clams inhalent siphon...mabey expelling zooxanthelle (can't spell). It seems that if the clam wasn't getting enough light that it would be overextending it's mantel, not closing it. It is possible that it's getting to much? Also, the clam has managed to turn itself in about 2 complete circles in the ladt week, but has remained in the same general area, it has not fallen over any. I don't think it's getting to much flow, but mabey it is.

Here it is the day I brought it home...looks great, mantle perfectly extended

Here it is today, a little over a week later....almost totally closed

Any ideas of what could be going on?

 

[COreefer]

phoenix bulbs eh???

See my post in this thread...

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=888275

 

[LBCBJ]

The Phoenix 14k has excellent PAR for a 150w bulb...one of the best in it's class. Look at Sanjay's data.

It seems that if the clam was not receiving enough light it would be extending it's mantle as far as it could (aka gaping) to expose itself to as much light as possible.

 

[mbbuna]

can you get a clear pic of it now?

put all the water coming from the PO4 remover through carbon

 

[LBCBJ]

I have it mixed in the reactor because I don't have room for two reactors. Why are you suggesting this though?

Here's a new pic. At the time of the pic the clam was expelling more brown stringy material

Don't be alarmed by all the white specks on the shell, they are mostly bubbles or sand. I've checked for p. snails and luckily found none, I did find 1 or 2 very small snails with round shells with tan stripes, not sure what they are. There's also a little bryospis growing on the left side, but it's not touching the mantle. Does this help?

 

[LBCBJ]

Ok, now I'm really worried. My lights are off and I just searched my tank with a flash light. Upon really close inspection I noticed that my at the clam was swarming with miniscule black organisms, smaller than a grain of salt. Looking around, I noticed that they were all over my SPS and corals. They're simply to small for a pic. What in the world are they??? This might be the problem

 

[mbbuna]

the clam doesnt look that bad in the last pic you posted.

can you post all results from every test kit you have?

can you scoop some of these bugs out and get a pic?