Derasa problem - please help

[Ereefic]

Just picked up a Derasa ( pretty sure) the other day. It looked great when we bought it, mantles extened nicely, no gaping and good color. It came from 250w MH's and is now in 175w MH's.

After introducing to our tank, the first day it looked good. The second day it would barely open and hasn't really opened since. A little bit but not much. Took it out and inspected it and found a small "rice" like snail, i forget the name. ?Pyramidal? Anyways, it also has some small sponges growing on it. I'm worried, any thought's on what I should do?

 

[Travis]

From your description, it sounds like you have pyramidellid snails on your clam. The best way to prevent this is to inspect and/or quarantine your clams before placing them in the tank. However, it's not the end of the world now that it's in there. Just take the clam out every night and remove all of the pyramidellid snails. When I had these it took less than a week to get rid of all of them. Even after you think you have gotten them all keep checking for a couple weeks with a flashlight at night because they can lay their eggs in the sandbed.

I haven't had any experience with boring sponges but I think if the clam has them you will be able to see tiny holes about the size of a needle where sponges have bored into the shell. Just to be safe I would remove the sponges.

HTH
Good Luck