dying or "sperming"?

ReefRaf

New member
I had a gold maxima spew white stringy stuff from the small (incurrent?) syphon for a few hours. The fish gobbled it up like crazy. Next day the clam was dead. This is shortly after introducing a nex squamosa that died within days. I figured it was affected by this recent plague of disease.
Two nights ago my larger blue maxima started doing the same thing. Spewing out this white goop. I assumed it would be dead the next day also. It wasn't. And although it isn't looking it's best, it is extended and fully rsponsive to light.
Is it possible that it was only expelling sperm? It is about 4 inches long and I thought it would need to be bigger/older before that could happen. The deceased gold clam was a fair bit smaller. They both have/had good growth rates, so I know they weren't really old.

Any thoughts and/or suggestions? The tank had clouded up a lot from the larger clam, but I added carbon and my skimmer is fairly large and worked hard that night.

Thanks
 
Hello,


I had the same thing happen to my tank when I moved all my clams. Unfortunately 3 of my clams died and 30 survived. All clams over 4" went into orgy mode. All of them started spawning.
According to Knop's "Giant Clam Book" any kind of stress will induce spawning. His description of stress would be the following: adding a new Carbon, drastic change of salinity ( Adding Fresh Water), drastic temperature change and a few more environmental changes.
Knop recommended to do a large water change: between 25%-50%. Make sure that the temperature and salinity of the new water is the same as your tank.
 
Well, that's kind of reassuring. ALthough the two separate incidents were several days apart. And no real change to the system. Temp is pretty steady, I have auto-topoff so salinity doesn't change and nothing was added to the system. The blue maxima is still alive, so I guess I'll just be happy about that.

BTW, where do you obtain clams in Ca. ?
 
white and stringy is a bad sign. Nothing of this sort should be coming from the inhalent siphon. Spawning takes place out of the exhalent siphon. The (CONTENTS) is sort of a white milky cloud.


SCOTT
 
Sorry, had my holes mixed up. The out hole was spewing. It did a bit more today. When I got up this morning, I thought for sure it was dead. But by noon, it looked OK again. All day has been off and on. Response to light isn't what it could be. Hopefully it's a tough clam and gets thru this!
 
Just thought I'd comment. A few weeks a go my Crocea oozed out white creamy stuff too. It was thick enough to hold it's shape for a few inches before being dispersed by the fish and current. Clam seems perfectly normal before and after. There were no changes in water or light.
 
reefraf,

Not ta scare you but please understand, I have lost 10 clams over the past 3 weeks. they have all displayed this behavior. I do have one clam displaying this behavior,this has went on for one week. I am sure this clam is infected. As for your clams I truly hope this is not the case.


SCOTT
 
Thanks Scott. Mine is dead as far as I can tell. The snails haven't gone after it yet, but it has no (or very little) response. I can squeeze the shell shut and it just drifts open again. I'll be removing it shortly. This was my last clam. Just to be safe, I'll wait a long time before adding another.
 
reefraf,

sorry to hear about your loss. The clam I had that was spewing white mucus; yup! It's dead! I think you are doing the right thing by waiting. It will be many months before I even think about buying one clam.

Some of the clam dealer in my area that have had infected clams seem offended because I wont buy clams from them at this time. They should not be selling clams out of an infected tank! I can no longer support this kind of business. A 1000 dollar loss is just too much!



SCOTT



P.S thanks very much to Tropical paradise for all your support and understanding.

THANKS EDDIE :)
 
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