Clam disease is just heat?

[Flame*Angel]

I spoke to a mailorder place and asked if they had any trouble with the disease that was affecting clams a while ago. They kind of laughed and said "those clams died of heat, there is no disease". I didn't experience the disease myself but it was during the summer months. Still, of all the people that had problems surely some of them would have had air conditioning.

What do you think?

 

[Project Reef]

I would like to know which moronic mail order company would say that.

Please do not believe that.

 

[ADS]

Clams lethal temp is around 34C(~94F). I have had clams in water up to 92F with no ill effects. This does stress them and will induce spawning. Smaller clams <2 inches seem to be much more temp sensitive than larger ones.
It is likely that your MO company may have had an inadequate holding tank with poor water/lighting prior to sale. They may never have recovered from transhipment to the store and unfortunately died in your system. Most of the quality suppliers will hold clams for weeks prior to sale. It might be worth inquiring as to the MO companys procedure for holding and acclimating.

 

[Wilafur]

pure bs. the was some sort of pathogen throughout the clam industry. everywhere along the chain of custody; from the collectors, farms, wholesalers, lfs's and hobbyists.

 

[mia1974]

clam disease

clam disease

I can assure you that my tank temp never went above 82 degrees. I had grown most of my clams (8 in total) for almost a year with no problems until I purchased a tainted clam from a MO company. My clams were showing symptoms within a week and within 3 weeks all my clams were dead. I cannot believe a company would generalize and make light of what happened to a lot of us in such a way...
However, I do not think the problem exists any longer as no one has been posting lately with mass clam mortalities...it was just a fluke thing that happened with that crop of clams that was distributed and it happens rarely from what I have read...

 

[holeinone1972]

Sounds like a sale, was more important than your question. Don't worry about it you can always get more kinda thing. What a bummer.

Heat was not the problem.

Rob

 

[Flame*Angel]

They told me they didn't lose any clams themselves because they have air conditioned facilities but that they checked with a marine biologist who told them it was bunk. I should have asked the name of the biologist. Anyway, I asked this before I ordered a clam from them and they did ship me a very healthy, beautiful crocea. They told me that all the people on the Internet who were losing clams and blaming it on a disease were actually losing them to heat.

 

[npaden]

Flame Angel.

They were wrong.

FWIW, Nathan

 

[Mad Scientist]

From what I hear out here in the East, that disease was pretty well documeneted when it made it's main run around.

People where losing clams in tanks where the SPS was fine. Although clams do like high DO, IMO it's unlikely this disease could be attibuted to water conditions because, again, people where losing clams in tanks where very fragile species continued to thrive.

Sounds like a nice company to do business with......

 

[Flame*Angel]

Normally this place is quite good and there are precious few good places in Canada. It's the same people I got a healthy copperband butterfly from - shipped clear across the country and eating the very first day. They were obviously way off base on the clam thing though.

 

[fishymissy]

I lost both of my clams to this disease, and I can assure you that the tank temp never went above 82Ã"šÃ‚º and we have central air conditioning too. So does the LFS that I bought the clams from.
My first clam I had for 7 months, and I was so happy with it, I thought I would get another one thinking that the clam disease wouldn't happen to my clams......

 

[griss]

When I lost all 8 of my clams it was summer, but my water temp never went above 84 degrees. I bought a T. Maxima from a LFS, acclimated it and it did fine for a couple days. Then it died for no reason. A short time later, my 6 year old Derasa died, followed by my 3 year old Crocea and then all my Maximas. The LFS admitted the farm they got the clam from had the disease.

Griss

 

[Flame*Angel]

I can see how a place that doesn't "do the online thing" and has never had an experience with the clam disease could be skeptical but to just discount it out of hand like these guys did is pretty bad. Obviously this mailorder place was completely wrong.

I didn't mean to insult anyone who suffered losses. I count myself lucky that my clams were spared.