Clam not looking well

[llamart]

Last night my clam started to sink into it's shell. Has anyone ever seen a clam do this? It has looked great up until this point. Water parameters for ALK Calcium and Salinity are right were they should be. He is still in this position now. And it doesn't look like he was attacked during the night.

http://members.cox.net/llamart/Sickclam.htm

Oh yea, the white and red stuff on it is sand and food. I took the picture while I was feeding the tank.

 

[Typhon]

What type of lighting do you have in the tank?? What is the temp of you tank??

It might be mantle pinching disease, but I will need a closer shot..

 

[llamart]

I upgraded a couple months ago from 1 175w MH mogul to two 250w MH clip in. The lights a 12" above the top of the tank, and the tank is 28" deep. Temp is around 82.

 

[Barry N.]

After looking at your clam, it appears to be dying. Once they pull their mantles in like that, they are dead or all most dead. Does it responded to touch or shadows?

How long have you had it?

How did you acclimate it?

What kind of lights was it under when you got it?

 

[llamart]

I have had it for almost 3 years.

For the lights I started with just one pendant on for four hour and increased it by fifteen minutes daily. Once it was at 10 hours I turned both lights on and started back down to four hours. I've slower with the lights since my BTA's started to bleach. At the 3 week point the lights are only on for 6.5 hours at this point.

I also have not added anything new for over a month, and that was just some pink Zoa's and a ricordia.

 

[llamart]

The Reason

The Reason

I use a floating glass bobber type hydrometer. It turned out that the paper inside the hydrometer that tells me where my salinity is at slid down the tube. So when I thought I was at 1.025, it was realy at 1.029. I just started to slowly reduce the salinity levels and I can already see a difference in my other corals. I just hope my clam isn't so stressed that it wont make it.

 

[Typhon]

You might want to purchase a refractometer.. Swing arm and floating hydrometers are so unreliable.

My old swing arm was off by 0.002..

 

[Typhon]

Inverts are more sensitive to salinty changes. I would recommend slowly dropping your salinty levels.

 

[llamart]

I have a 45 gallon tank and I swapped a gallon of water out every hour since this morning. The clam is already showing sign of improvement by raising out of its shell.

My LFS has refractometers and I was looking at one today (that what was used to discovey my issue). I probably will get one within the month.

 

[COreefer]

You might want to purchase a refractometer.. Swing arm and floating hydrometers are so unreliable

Swing arms are calibrated for 60 degree temps...Compare the swing arm against a refractometer and you are in business.