FW dip=permanent cure or bandaid?

L

lt

New member
For those of you who have dipped your clams in FW to treat the pinching disease, has anyone out there ever had a full recovery (eg. no pinching in over 6 months), or do you usually have to redip every 3 months or so?

I have never been fully cured of the disease. I have had to redip every 3 months for over a year now. I dip every clam I have in temp matched RO for 25 min

If anyone has any input I would appreciate it :)
 
Depends - Iv'e done it a few time on a few clams (not all my own I might add...). The succesful one's are when things die & fall out of the clam, usually a small bristle worm or 3... IMO there is no 'disease' its a symptom of something irritating the clam & a lot of that can be cured by FW dip'

-jamie
 
I've got a maxima that got over it. I don't know how many times I dipped him (lots) But it's been about a year now and he's looking fine.

Dan
 
I cured my 20 clams of the disease after I dipped all of my clams at the same time. I also tried not to shake the clam too much as I take them out of the tank to dip.
Dipped them all at the same time (even those that don't look sick) once was all I needed to cure my tank of pinched mantel disease.
 
I believe that Barry at Clam's Direct says to do your dip for about 10 minutes or so. The clam can take it that long but whatever critter is causing the irritation can't. If I remember the thread correctly, shorter dips usually required that they be repeated after several months but after trying the longer dip, no more issues.
 
FW DIP FOR CLAMMY

FW DIP FOR CLAMMY

i dipped my 10 inch squammy for this pinch thing and to my surprise i seen a bristle worm or two at the bottom of the bucket after like ten minutes or so give or take? its been about 6,months now and my clam has fully recovered from whatever was bothering it? mantle opens very fully now with no pinching! one thin i did notice after the freshwater dip though is that the bottom part of the clam opening where the stringly things are that protect it from ingesting big particles out of the water column disintegrated:confused: but they are all growing back now. what would have caused this?
 
The ones I have done were for 30min. My squamosa, and derasa have never pinched- only my croceas and If I rememerber correctly my maxi did once but never again.
 
I've had a heck of a time with this pinching mantle stuff. I used to have it in my tank and couldn't get rid of it. I would dip all of my clams at once for 30 minutes. Then a week or 2 later it would be back. I was dipping them every couple weeks for months. It even got to the point where I tried dipping them for up to 50 minutes and still the pinching would be back.:eek2:

Then, the best thing ever for my clams happened (worst thing ever for me). My tank crashed and I lost all of my corals, half of my fish, and only 1 of my 6 clams. After that, the pinching was gone for good.

Then, about 1 1/2 months ago, I decided it was time to get some more clams. I ordered 2 babies and 2 small ones from an online vendor (not going to mention any names but this is the same place I got the pinching from the first time). One of the small ones started pinching after a week so I dipped it for 30 min. Then I noticed the same signs in some more of my clams so I dipped them all for 30min. Then a couple weeks later it comes back in another clam so I dip them all again. Now it was back again so I just dipped them all last night. Looks like I'm back to dipping every 2 weeks.:mad2:

My new clam tank will be up and running in about 2 months. I'm hoping that if I dip my clams before transferring them over, I can leave this pinching behind. From then on, I can keep all new clams in quarantine until they are done pinching so they don't give it to all of my clams.

I don't know what it is that is causing the pinching. It could be a parasite. Heck, it could even be a tank parameter for all we know. Whatever it is, FW dipping has only worked as a band-aid for me.
 
Travis: how long have you been dealing with the pinching disease?

I can honestly say I have been dealing with this problem for about 1.5 years now. I generally have to redip ALL clams every 3 months or so (when the problem gets noticeably bad). I have about 10 clams so maybe "its" effects are dispersed throughout all of them so my dipping schedule is different.

Anyhow, I really want to get rid of this for once and all! I am going to tranfer all the clams over to a prop tank (after I redip them of course). I will leave them there for about a month or two and then I will transfer them back if there are no signs of pinching.

Presently when I FW dip them I return them directly to the main tank. Sometimes the byssal opening has a mucus that appears to drip off when I lift them out to dip them. Perhaps this is the source of reinfection everytime?
 
Travis: how long have you been dealing with the pinching disease?
Click to expand...

I've been dealing with the pinching for a year now. Glad to hear I'm not the only one that can't get rid of it. Maybe we can get a little more detailed and find out WHY it isn't going away for us. I usually redip my clams at the first signs of pinching. This has kept it contained to 1-2 clams out of 12. Do all of your clams pinch?

As far as the slime you mentioned. Sometimes the infected clam has it, sometimes it doesn't. I think the slime is usually when the clam is trying to find a new attachment site. Whenever the clam is attached to a rock or shell, etc. there doesn't seem to be any slime.

What do you do to prepare your water?

I match my RO/DI ph within .5 by adding vinegar/baking soda. I place 1 gallon ice cream pail with this water in it into the sump and let it float for 30 minutes to equalize the temperature. While the temperature is equalizing I also aerate the water with an air pump and air stone. Then I dip the clam for 30 minutes minimum. I ALWAYS dip after the lights go out. I've had better luck with not having adverse reactions in the clams this way. I've suffered losses when dipping during the photoperiod. Not sure why.:confused:
 
I have a 4" maxima that has pinch since I bought it 2 months ago, I going to do a FW dip on it....however I have never dont this before.

Just to clarify, I fill a bucket with RO/DI FW at the same temp as the diplay tank, then just place the clam in it for 30 mins, then put it back in the main diplay? thats it!

Sounds like it would kill it?
 
platapus said:
I have a 4" maxima that has pinch since I bought it 2 months ago, I going to do a FW dip on it....however I have never dont this before.

Just to clarify, I fill a bucket with RO/DI FW at the same temp as the diplay tank, then just place the clam in it for 30 mins, then put it back in the main diplay? thats it!

Sounds like it would kill it?
Click to expand...
This is how I dipped mine, except I use RO water instead of RO/DI
Minh
 
Hey - went over to help a buddy w/ a couple of pinching clams & realized that his salinity was way high & had been for a while - that's what was causing it. We pulled out a few gallons while drinking a 12'er & replaced with FW till the SG was right & teh clams instantly relaxed. Within a few days they were just like normal. - check your SG too!
 
My salinity is 1.024 using a refractormeter that I calibrate with pure water just prior to use.

Will it be a problem if I use RO/DI water?
 
Last edited:
RO/DI is fine. I just make sure to aerate it for a good half hour or so before the dip. I also adjust the temp and ph to match that of the tank.
 
platapus said:
My salinity is 1.024 using a refractormeter that I calibrate with pure water just prior to use.

Will it be a problem if I use RO/DI water?
Click to expand...

RO/DI water is fine, just aerate and match temperature and PH if possible.
Just a side note on refractometers. I use to calibrate with RO/DI water also until a service tech from American Marine (pinpoint products) told me that this is not always accurate. He told me to check & calibrate the refractometer using a known solution. I have their salinity monitor, so he told me to use the calibration fluid which is 53ms (1.026) & guess what, the refractometer was off by .001 to .002.
 
Thats good to know -

Were did you get the calibration fluid?

I have been calibrating it with the "purewater" solution that came with it, but with that you just calibratite it to "0"

Im sure that refractometers aren't 100% accurate to the thousanths, but they are way more accurate than the hydrometers, for with I have a box full of, and no two give the same reading :lol:
 
Your right about those swing arm hydrometers, I also have about 4 of them which as you said, no two give the same readings! The 53ms solution was packaged with the PinPoint salinity monitor but when I purchased it, I also bought extra calibration fluid.

I wouldn't "run out to get it", but if you ever do any mail order for dry goods, you can add it into your list. I purchased my monitor & extra fluids from captivereefs.com, I tried to look at marine depot & custom aquatics for you since they are in Cali, but I did not see it in their products list.
I did find it from thatpetplace.com, I do occassional mail order goods with them also (east coast), here's a link to the calibration fluid:

http://www.thatpetplace.com/Products/KW/calibration,fluid/Class//T1/F73+0445+0017/Itemdy00.aspx
 
Maybe somebody could describe or, better yet, post a picture of what pinched mantle looks like. I would like to know what to watch out for.
 
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