on3ofak1nd
New member
I have a beautiful crocea which I've had for almost a year now...
Two days ago while I was at work my overflow started to back up... this caused the water level in my sump to slowly drop and as a result it triggered my auto top-off system to pump freshwater into the sump when it wasn't needed. I caught it and corrected the problem however it swung the salinity down to 1.022! This happened rather rapidly.
Nothing seemed to be affected except my crocea, immediately afterward I noticed the clam was almost completely retracted and there seemed to be a bit of tissue degradation I could see on one side. I assumed it had gotten stressed and therefore was reacting negatively. I decided not to bring the salinity back to normal at that time and instead I'd let evaporation do that for me as I knew it would only take a day or two...
With that being said I'm a bit confused now as I have just read that Pinched Mantle is often treated with a FW dip!? If this is so how could a .003 change in salinity stress my clam to the point that it won't open for 2 days?
Additionally.. last night the clam was opened maybe 1/4 of its normal extension however once the lights went out I was watching and my skunk cleaner shrimp hopped on top of him and started picking away at the tissue area which I stated looked slightly deteriorated. At first I was quite disturbed as I thought he was EATING my clam... I started to cut a 2 liter bottle up to make a "force field" cover to place over the clam in an effort to keep the shrimp away and hopefully allow the clam to heal on its own. But as I was just about done making it the shrimp ceased its actions and went off somewhere else. Is it possible the shrimp was just picking the dead tissue away just as it would with a fish? I wasn't aware that shrimp will clean clams too..?
I looked at the clam this morning before heading to work... the lights were off of course but it appeared to still be intact and didn't look much different than last night... still retracted of course.
Any thoughts or ideas?
Thanks
Two days ago while I was at work my overflow started to back up... this caused the water level in my sump to slowly drop and as a result it triggered my auto top-off system to pump freshwater into the sump when it wasn't needed. I caught it and corrected the problem however it swung the salinity down to 1.022! This happened rather rapidly.
Nothing seemed to be affected except my crocea, immediately afterward I noticed the clam was almost completely retracted and there seemed to be a bit of tissue degradation I could see on one side. I assumed it had gotten stressed and therefore was reacting negatively. I decided not to bring the salinity back to normal at that time and instead I'd let evaporation do that for me as I knew it would only take a day or two...
With that being said I'm a bit confused now as I have just read that Pinched Mantle is often treated with a FW dip!? If this is so how could a .003 change in salinity stress my clam to the point that it won't open for 2 days?
Additionally.. last night the clam was opened maybe 1/4 of its normal extension however once the lights went out I was watching and my skunk cleaner shrimp hopped on top of him and started picking away at the tissue area which I stated looked slightly deteriorated. At first I was quite disturbed as I thought he was EATING my clam... I started to cut a 2 liter bottle up to make a "force field" cover to place over the clam in an effort to keep the shrimp away and hopefully allow the clam to heal on its own. But as I was just about done making it the shrimp ceased its actions and went off somewhere else. Is it possible the shrimp was just picking the dead tissue away just as it would with a fish? I wasn't aware that shrimp will clean clams too..?
I looked at the clam this morning before heading to work... the lights were off of course but it appeared to still be intact and didn't look much different than last night... still retracted of course.
Any thoughts or ideas?
Thanks