Clam Experts...Cause of Death???

[niko5]

Iv had a clam about 6 months now doing great and recently it acturaly was showing shell growth.

Iv recently had some parameter problems and was wondering if someone could give me the most likely cause of death.

Nitrates 50ppm
Nitrites .5 ppm
Alk 2.4
Ca 390

Temp 76F - 81F

I have a sally crab and some red reef crabs could one of them just been upset with the clam? (im thinking not the clam looked bad yesterday... Today its dead)

Any ideas?

Thanks everyone

 

[shk28]

Any number of things could have lead to your clam's death. Give us a little more info. What kind of clam was it? What is your tank setup (lighting, filtration, etc.) Unstable water parameters are not going to help things, but other factors may have been involved as well.

 

[niko5]

I dont remember the name of it but its the cheep kinda (see picture)
http://www.nicksreef.com/images/tanks/125 gal tank/Clam On Cradle.JPG

Tank is 125 Gal with 60 gal sump 10 gal refuge. Lifereef skimmer. Lighting is 2 250 Watt MH and the clam was directly under one of the bulbs.

The only major unstale parameter was my alk... It was 2.6 and I wanted it around 2.8 so i started adding tech CB to raise it and it droped to 2.4. I also have started dripping Kalk (1 drip per 9 sec very slow)

anything else?

 

[shk28]

You had a crocea clam. You alk is on the low side, but my bigger concerns are the nitrates and especially nitrites. In an established tank, nitrites should always be 0. My guess would be the unstable water conditions were the biggest problem. What other tank mates are there? A nippy fish or other critter can bother clams to the point where they get stressed and die.

 

[jdieck]

If you had nitrites usually you had Ammonia that could have affected her.

 

[niko5]

Thanks for all the responses.

Shk28,
Iv got a clown, mandrin goby, foxface, lawnmower, yellow tang, royal grama and some chromies. I have not seen any fish or inverts nipping at the clam even and the clam was really my fav critter so I always watched it for stuff like that.

jdieck,
I ran another test tonight for ammonia just to make SURE and still comming up with 0.

I am prepairing a 30 gal water change for tommorow and another 30 gal change the next day (as fast as I can make water) and then follow those up with 5 gal a night untill i get my levels normal. im tired no nitrites and rates GURR

 

[jdieck]

Sometimes they just die. Two motnhs ago I had one died on me after eight months on the aquarium. It was placed at the same place as another two, same water conditions, same flow same light and so on. The other two keep going strong and growing and I am still at a lost of what could have been as I could not find any signs of sikness, parasites or any other sign of atack.