gigas dying!!!

airwaybill

airwaybill

meat popsicle
I have a 14" T. gigas that seems to be dying. It was fine the past couple days, but, today I come home and one side of the mantle appears to have let go of the shell. I can't figure it out. The other clams in the tank are fine.

I have had pyramid snails but have been keeping an eye on them and removing them every week. Plus they didn't seem to be affecting the gigas.

It's really sad because I grew it from a 3" farm raised baby. I've had it almost 9 years.

If anyone has any experiece or advice I would appreciate it. I already examined it and took any snails or eggs off of it. It looks as if it is just giving up and letting go of it's shell.

Any Ideas?
 
Thats really interesting, I;ve never heard anything quite like that. Are your lights getting old or anything that he might be reacting to? Picture?
 
Lights are due for a change but not bad. About 11 months.

No pic lights are out.

I'm about disgusted at this point.

I found two nassarius in the shell and removed them. Although I know they go after dying tissue. That probably means it is doomed.
 
if the snails are after him it is probably to late, i hope i'm wrong :sad2:

you should be happy for the time you had with him. i can tell by how much it bothers you that you were a great parent. i agree with LotR Clown, 9 years is great :thumbsup:
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9085919#post9085919 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by airwaybill
It's like losing a child. I feel I have failed as a parent. :(
Click to expand...

I feel your pain, but come on! Do you really have children?
 
thats great to keep a clam for nine years! but i wonder why it only grew to 14"? it should have reached that size in 3 years or less. I wonder if something was always wrong and it took this long? was the calcium always a bit low, or something always stunting its growth? do you have any pictures, and whats the equipment list and tank size? If the nassarius are moving in its usually a done deal. I have had clams grown from babys to 10" over several years then died when i moved them to a diff tank and I know what you mean it really sucks to lose them, clams are different than other corals for me, its seems like they are more of an animal that a coral which is a ton of individual polpys.
Chris
 
Sorry to hear about your clam. You did a great job for 9 years and I feel your loss. Try to find out what happened so you can keep another longer.

Low calcium and pyramid snails can do them in. What type of light did you have? 14 inches is pretty small for 9 years. I would think it should have been at least double that size with plenty of light, calcium and no snails
 
It may be closer to 18 or 20". It's been a while since I measured it. It's 3/4 the width of my 180.

It started as a 1.5 in baby about 9 years ago. It has gone through alot with me. Three moves, ups and downs with water quality and care. I've gone through some tough times in the past years I've had it. It grew to 4 or 5in quickly then stopped when I neglected the tank a while. Then in the past 3 years it has added alot of growth.

Calcium is not low and I have 3 400 watt mhs, 12k. I check it all and the tank stays close to perfect.

I thought about it today. With the size of the clam, pulling it out of the tank to clean off the snails may not have helped. It may have damaged the attachment to the shell. And it just finally succomed to it.

I'm just really diappointed in myself that I didn't find a natural predator for the snails instead of taking out the clam every week.

Maybe it should have been bigger but, it still doesn't give much explination as to why all of a sudden it died.

I may never know.

I'll just have to try again. I may try a Hippoppus this time and grow it as large as possible.
 
Ah i see, I didnt realize you had to remove it weekly, that was probably hard to due given the weight of that thing! Maybe it was the snails then? I have never had them (knock on wood) but I am sure they are not good for a clam. I have always red that once a clam gets used to a certain spot in the tank dont move it, as they will not like adjusting to different light, which could be the case moving it and placing it back maybe a few inches different each time, who knows.
Chris
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9093524#post9093524 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by airwaybill
I thought about it today. With the size of the clam, pulling it out of the tank to clean off the snails may not have helped. It may have damaged the attachment to the shell. And it just finally succomed to it.

I'm just really diappointed in myself that I didn't find a natural predator for the snails instead of taking out the clam every week.

Maybe it should have been bigger but, it still doesn't give much explination as to why all of a sudden it died.

I may never know.
Click to expand...

i think you have the answer right there. pyramid snails are a clam predator. ( not all but if they were on your clam they are ) pyramids do most of their damage at night, so it may have looked like they weren't bothering the clam. the best way to deal with pyramids is to remove the clam daily ( a few hour after lights out ) and physically remove the snails, for about a week ( or when you start seeing less ) then every couple of days, then weekly and so on. maybe by only doing it weekly their numbers were allowed to keep growing instead of diminishing.
 
I did check and remove every couple days in the beginning.

Then it seemed I only needed to do it once a week.

I think the stress of being moved so much did it in. I would only find 3-5 pyramids on it weekly. Should not be enough to do a clam of it's size in.
 
Well it seems as if I couldn't win this one. It looks like the combination of the pyramidilad snails, boring algae and stress because of the treatment for the snails.

The clam finally died today and I inspected the shell and the flesh. There was alot of scaring to the inner part of the shell due to the clam trying to fight the algae and the snails that got inside. There were deposits on the inside over alot of the shell. It had been fighting a long time. Just couldn't fight anymore I guess. Not sure if there was anything I could do.

Time to put this to rest I suppose. Rip my 14" gigas. I measured it today.

And thanks to all that showed support, and Knop's giant clams book for helping me identify the cause of death.
 
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