Flame scallop bouncing back?

[Drix]

I recently underwent some major work in my tank (Large water change, new pump, new plumbing, etc) and put my 9 month old flame scallop into shock, he began receding in his shell and lost control of that muscle that allows it to close its shell thus gaping hugely and pulling the tissue from the shell. In a panic and not knowing what else to do I grabbed one of those cloth velcro things you get on lettuce, cut it, and put it around the scallop so it could just bearly open its mouth and left it like that for 5 days.

I've undone the zip tie tonight to try to feed it a bit and to my amazement while still lethargic my scallop seems to be bouncing back, the tissue has re-attached to its shell and it has more control over its shell and is not gaping. Can I expect more if I keep a close eye on him? I really dont want it to die, I've had alot of luck with it so far.

 

[sl-atl]

That's great! What are (err, were) you doing to keep it happy and healthy? I tried keeping flame scallops way back in the day without much luck, but would love to try again in our reef tank if I could keep it going as long as you have.

 

[Drix]

I really dont do too much but I'll share whats basically going on.

My flame scallop sits inside of an old giant clam shell thats been encrusted over by other stuff forming a neat piece of live rock thats got a u shaped groove in the center. My flame sits in the end of that groove so it thinks its nice and proteced on all sides, I keep a korelia 3 pump pointed directly at it about 3' away plus or minus (its on a diagnoal). My pump is aimed in such a way that i dose phyto and zooplex directly into the pump and it sprays over the scallop and stays in the area due to the nature of the curve of the rock. I usually feed it about 3x a week and will occasionally spot feed (maybe once a month).

I supplement calcium about once a month, and do water tests frequently. I consistantly keep 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 8.2ph, 79degree temp, 0 phosphate, 0 copper, slight nitrates (.1 to .2ppm range) sg 1.026

The only other drastically different thing in my tank is I have a small bio load and rarely do water changes. I know, gasp, no water changes, but its more of a personal experiment in water filtration than anything else. I think this might be where I get my lifespan from as there may be some organinc thing that might be taken out with water changes, I'm not sure, like I said I've never had problems till I was forced to do one.

I'm not sure I do anything special, and my clam's definatly bouncing back, it looks even more healthier, it seems to be eating as it was excreting detritus earlier, and the cleaning crew is no longer circling like vultures. Guess time will tell, if theres any other questions I can see if I can help you guys out. But I seem to believe my biggest luck comes from such a low bio load, guess its a benefit to being a broke college student.


Bio Load:
Inverts:
1 Fighting COnch
1 Zebra Turbo Snail
1 Sand sifting serpent star
1 Peppermint Shrimp (I think, haven't seen him)
2 Nassarius Snails
Many Hermits
An Army of Zoanthids
Some mushrooms
Devils hand leather
Bubble Coral

 

[sl-atl]

That's good information. I think it's always better to err on the side of simplicity myself.