Freshwater dip

[DaveP]

I have green star polyps growing on my maxima's shell and visibly irratating my clam. I am planning a freshwater dip for ~10 minutes in hopes of killing the GSP (and not the clam of course ). I will use Ro water and make the water temp and PH the same as the tank.
Any other suggestions, comments? Is this ok to do? Will it work?

Thanks!

 

[aliendomain]

I would first try to remove the star polyps from the shell, no point stressing the clam with a dip unless you have to.

 

[DaveP]

Thanks for the response. I have tried removing them numerous times. It stresses the clam out big time and the GSP just grow bak 2 weeks later

 

[aliendomain]

I have know idea if a FW dip would kill GSPs but I have to think that it would not considering their resilience.

 

[a.p.17]

i agree. i think a freshwater dip would stress out the clam more than just removing the gsp. i would just take the clam out and scrubb the shell real good.

 

[DaveP]

Problem is I have scrubbed the shell numerous times. It really stresses the clam out and the GSP keep coming back.
Did anyone FW dip their clam? I would like to know how much it would stress the clam.

 

[a.p.17]

i have given 5 different clams freshwater dips mostly for retracted mantles. i think if you give a freshwater dip to a clam that is just irritated it will do more harm than good. 3 of the five clams lived but the other two have died.

 

[Travis]

I have fw dipped my clams with success. However, I wouldn't do it unless it was a last resort for the clam. A FW dip is certain to stress the clam out more than scrubbing its shell. For the GSP's, I would try to remove all of the mat with a brush and then use a tweezers to get the rest. Might also work to take the clam out of the water and then put a good thick layer of kalk paste on the GSP's making sure not to get any on near the clam openings. Then just let the clam sit out of water for a few minutes. I think this would be much less stressful to the clam considering they are commonly exposed to air for long durations in the wild.

 

[Court_Jester]

I've found that Kalk paste will take care of most problems like this.

Pull the clam out of the tank, remove as much GSP as possible, and put the clam back in the tank for a few hours or until it isn't stressed anymore. Mix up some Kalk and water with the consistancy of a batter (something like 4:1 kalk:water will get you in the ballpark). Then pull the clam back out and CAREFULLY spread the kalk paste over the areas of the shell where you suspect there may be GSP tissue remaining - you don't need much. Be sure not to get any of the paste on anything other than the clam shell. It's a good idea to take some slighly damp paper towel and make a ring for the clam to sit on. This will allow the paper towel to collect any paste or kalk laden water from irritating the soft tissue at the base of the clam. Let the paste sit for 2-3 minutes before doing a light rinse with tank water using a baster (holding the clam in the air above a container which the kalk and water will drip into). You don't have to remove all the kalk paste - just the stuff which will come off easily so it won't easily come off the shell when you place the clam back in the tank. Turn off the pumps to your tank to reduce any currents and place the clam back into the tank taking care to not spread any remaining paste on the shell into the tank (if you did the rinse and let the paste dry slightly afterward this shouldn't be a problem). Any remaining Kalk will slowly desolve into the tank water while allowing more contact time to kill the offender that you want to get rid of. Repeat as necessary over the next week if you find you missed areas the first time.

Couple of things to keep in mind:
-Better to do several light applications over a couple days than one heavy one, particularly if you haven't done this type of thing before.
-Keep the kalk away from the soft tissues of the clam! Have a bowl of tank water and a baster available if you do. Should this happen. Dont' panic. Rinse the kalk off quickly and then place the clam back in the tank with some moderate current to minimize the irritation.
-If you have other organisms on the clam shell that you'd like to preserve (tube worms, etc.), only do one half of the shell one day and the other half another day (avoiding getting any kalk on the said organisms of course). This will minimze the stress to these secondary organisms.

 

[DaveP]

thanks a lot for the detailed response! I will try the kalk paste and let everyone know what happens.
Thanks again!

 

[justletmein]

You could also scrape as much of the gsp off as possible and then cover what's left with epoxy. You should be able to remove the epoxy a few weeks later after the gsp die off.