Help on parasites- Urgent

ckhorne

New member
I've been having problems with my clams over the past several weeks, ever since I introduced a new clam from the LFS without freshwater dipping; I'll never make that mistake again.

I have 5 maximas, and two of them started to pinch their mantles. I did a freshwater dip just two weeks ago, but was afraid that without another dip, they wouldn't make it. So I dipped again. Here's what I found off of two clams (a 3" and a 1") in the freshwater when done (and about 50 others like these):

clamparasites.jpg


Note that those are grains of fine sand, for reference - these guys are about 1-2 mm long. I went ahead and dipped all the clams, and ended up with even more of these when I was done.

If I had seen these anywhere except in the freshwater dip container, I would have assumed they were copepods or amphipods. However, the clams all seem to be doing better now. Since I don't have a QT tank setup yet, I have put them in a glass bowl in my sump until I figure out what to do.

Does anybody know what these are or, more importantly, how long their life cycle is? I thought about picking up a 6-line wrasse to help eradicate them in the tank, or just setting up a QT until their life cycle passed, or both.

Any suggestions?
 
I agree, except that my clams look much better after the FW dip. Of course, it could just be coincidence, and the amphipods just happen to be along for the ride...
 
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