Clams - pinched mantles

S

simonh

Premium Member
Premium Member
I was preparing a post on a condition that has been affecting my clams for along long time. I did some searching around on other boards and came across this post that seemed to describe my problem http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=171048
I'm interested if anyone else out there has been suffering in silence too or has tried the FW dip. Just to clarify too that there aren't any snails on the clams that are suffering, and all testable water parameters are inline (with fast growing hard corals).
 
Thanks Minh. I hadn't seen that thread. I'm re-reading everything again and plan on taking some action tonight after getting some photographs of before treatment.
 
good luck simon! i dipped my maxima two days ago and so far, no pinching of the mantle. i was afraid to dip my other healthy clams so i'll wait it out and see and if the symptoms come back all three will get dipped like in minh's procedure.
 
All 5 of mine are now undergoing the dip. I will post some pictures soon of the before. Hopefully, I will be able to post some after in a couple of days by the sounds of thing. Then monitor progress over the coming months.
 
Sorry about the picture quality on some of the images. I had the wrong setting on the camera and failed to notice until I downloaded them just now.

First image is of my 3 most affected clams. On the left is the worst affected T. squamosa which has been affected for 8 months or so. After been in quaranteen and moved back into the main tank it started growing again and looked great. After a short while it started showing symptoms again. Over the last week it has deterioated quickly. Middle back is a T. crocea which seems to exhibit scrunched mantle like in some of the picture in other threads rather than the severe pinching. It has been like that for 12 months or more and has really struggled to put on much growth as it seems to have been affected so much during this time. On the right is a T. maxima again which hasn't put on too much growth and has probably suffered for 12-18 months.

All these clams were bought looking perfect but on introduction to my tank developed the symptoms along with the rest of my clams. I have since noticed similar symptoms on some of the clams at my LFS and I know my LFS lost two 10 year old clams in his display tank around 18-24 months ago with the same sort of symptoms.

before1.jpg


Here is an image of a clam that I moved into a quaranteen tank along with a couple of others for a few months during the summer. It had suffered the problem on and off for 18 months or so. This one seemed to make a full recovery in the Q tank and upon moving back has shown maybe 1cm growth after been dormant all the time it was afflicted. This clam has not re-developed the problem after quarenteen. I dipped it anyway.

before2.jpg


Here's the clams 5 minutes after the dip:

after1.jpg


I'll keep everyone up-to-date on any further developments.
 
Just an update after lights out. The T. squamosa seemed pretty stressed after the FW dip although it was worst affected beforehand. All clams have opened since the dosing so I am hopeful they made it through the FW dip phase okay.

I noticed the T. crocea the first to open and by the end of the evening was extended over the shell beautifully with no crinkles. Shortly after the dip I noticed it expelling some brown stringy stuff maybe food or maybe some of the algae killed by the dip been harvested or maybe whatever is in the tissues that has been causing the problem? I just checked 5 minutes ago now the lights have been out a couple of hours and the mantle on the T. crocea is laid nicely just over the shell edges like they used to alonglongtime ago instead of just been crinkled inside the shell like recently. To see that clam looking normal again makes me very very happy :D

Hopefully everything will proceed smoothly tommorrow.
 
I posted a similiar problem about a week ago; wonder if it something in the water this past week :) jk

-------
I came across Minh's thread a little less then a week ago by accident. As it turns out I hade the same problem as what he had described.

Here is a thread that I started which described my problem.
http://reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129924

Minh confirmed through email that it looked the same as what he went through so I decided to dip my infected clams. (FW in same temp for 30mins).

Here are some pics after the dipping. They didn't extend as much as before; but they are improving from the looks of it. A third (the smallest) clam which is shown at the pbase site recovered right away (strange since he was dipped with the blackish one)

http://www.pbase.com/cowboy_coder/gallery/pinched_clams
 
Minh (and others) ---

My clams have had this pinched condition for a while now, i have been hesitant to undergo treatment.

Anyways, is it safe to dip the clams in DI water instead of RO, i don't have access to plain RO water.
 
Steve,
There is no significant diference between RO and RO/DI water as far as the clam is concern. If you make sure the temperature is the same, then there is less stress for them. Weaken clam can be kill from dipping. If the clam got to that stage, it will die soon anyway so I don't think you have much to loose by dipping them.
Good luck.
Minh
 
Here's a picture of my worst affected clam 24 hours after the dip.
after24h.jpg


I'll take some better pictures when I get out the tripod and have a little more time. Just to say the T. crocea is looking wonderful today and was the quickest clam to recover from the dip.
 
simonh,
I am glad that it seem to work well for you. The problem is to completly eliminate the disease from the tank, or else it will get re-infected.
If what you got in your tank is the same disease as mine, then the FW dip works quite well with minimal trauma to the clams, IME.
Minh
 
Minh, an update:

My clams had been showing symptoms for about 2 weeks (3" maxima and 2" squamosa), starting with slightly uneven mantle edges then the mantle became more and more pinched. Until a few days ago i thought i had pyramellid (sp?) snails and was checking the clams every night to no avail.

Last night i dipped both clams for 25 minutes in about 80% DI water, 20% saltwater, same temp. as the tank. (thought this might be less stressful)

After the dip the squamosa started to gape a little but is fine today. Today both clams are fully open and show no signs of pinching.
 
Sad news this morning in that I found my T. crocea been eaten by worms. Funnily, this little guy had been the first to extend after the dip and looked beautiful yesterday and the night before so I thought it was through the troubled days. I guess it didn't have the energy reserves to make it. All the other clams look fine and hopefully they will continue to recover well.
 
Any dudate guys?
If I am worry about the stress for the clams, I would dip them less than 30 min rather than using RO water mix with tank water. It is my OPINION that the infection is caused by microscopic parasites. Being small, it may take less than 30 minutes of fresh water to kill them.
I did not have mortality (only one death) with dipping for 30 minutes so I did not try to dip them for a shorter periord of time.
Good luck to everybody who have clams infected with this disease.
Minh Nguyen
 
All my other clams are doing well. Mantle extension is great just like back in the good old days. I hope to get time to take some more pictures at the weekend.
 
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