Clam turning brown

[jpc763]

I have had a Crocea clam for about 1.5 weeks. It is under T5 4x54 watt lighting in a 55g tank. It is placed in the top half although it spent first week in the sand.

It is turning brown.
First, is that a problem for the health of the clam?
Second, is there anything I can do about it?

Here are 2 pics. The day I got it and today.

Feb 10

Feb 20

 

[skinz78]

what are your paramaters? And the pic is blurry and off to the side, can you get one that is compareable to the first pic?

 

[jpc763]

Well the lights are off now unfortunately. The first pic the clam was on the sand close to the front glass. The second pic the clam is in the center of the tank on the rock work. I will try to take a picture tomorrow.

Parameters from Sunday
02/17/08
Temp 77
Specific Gravity 1.025
pH 8.40
Ammonia 0.00
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Calcium 420
dKH 8
Phosphate 0

55g tank with a Nova Extreme T5x54w with 2 stock 10k and 2 stock actinic bulbs. I have a 15g fuge/sump with chaeto and run a remora urchin skimmer. I have a bag of carbon in the sump.

 

[a4twenty]

i agree, please try to get a picture form the same angle as the original pic. the symbiotic algae ( zooxanthellae ) hosted in the clams mantle is actually brown in color and looks very different when viewed from different angles.

 

[jpc763]

Well I checked on the clam this morning and it looked fine. Tonight when I got home from work it was dead and the clean up crew was at work :sad2:

So the clam lasted 11 days. I am not sure what went wrong. My parameters are posted above. I have LPS, SPS and an Anemone in the tank and all are thriving.

I fed the clam per the LFS instructions. I mixed up coral frenzy and squirted it in front of the clam. I can only figure that I killed it that way.

Another possibility is that I "handled" it too much, trying to get it to attach.

Any input would be appreciated. Thanks, J

 

[a4twenty]

sorry for your loss

you don't need to specifically feed a clam as long as you have a few fish in the tank that are feed regularly. but if you do decide to feed the clam ( which is fine if done right ) i would just use phytoplankton added to the tank and not squirted in front of the clam. clams are constantly filtering water for respiration and take up whatever else they need as they need it, you can't force feed them in a matter of minutes, it is to much to fast.

your parameter look ok, so possibly it was a combination of the feeding and stress from the move and handling. how did you acclimate the clam??

 

[jpc763]

I used drip acclimation. I put the clam in a small bucket inside a big bucket of water. The big bucket has a heater in it to maintain a constant temp in the small bucket. I used a drip line and dripped tank water into the small bucket constantly over 2 hours.

The LFS said to make sure the clam was exposed to as little air as possible so once the 2 hours were up, I submerged most of the little bucket in the tank and quickly moved the clam from bucket to tank without mixing water.

As far as feeding, yes, I would feed the clam by squirting tank water with coral frenzy and cyclopeeze in it in front of the clam several times over a 45 minute period.

In hind sight, I should have left the clam where it was happy and not try to keep moving it to get it to "attach".

 

[a4twenty]

the clam will attach when and if he is happy, regardless of how much we want them to. phytoplankton is the best thing to feed a clam and don't try to target feed, just add it to the tank. the foods you were feeding are to large ( zooplankton ) to be utilized by the clam.

HTH