help with slowly retracting crocea

[johara]

update

update

The clam did die a few weeks later. After waiting a couple weeks I recently put another crocea in the tank. Within a day it too was retracting, but this time I think I found the culprit. My hippo tang seemed to be nipping at it's mantle. I covered the clam with a clear plastic container with holes in it to protect it and sure enough it expanded it's mantle beautifully. After a day and a half I tried taking off the "cage" and within a few minutes the hippo again nipped hard at the mantle. Why I was unable to see this with the first clam I don't know. Nor do I know why my three year old hippo tang developed an appetite for clam after years of peaceful coexistence.

Has anyone else had a clam eating hippo tang? Is there any way to train it not to nip or do I have to decide between the tang and the clam?

 

[RedSonja]

Re: update

Re: update

Has anyone else had a clam eating hippo tang? Is there any way to train it not to nip or do I have to decide between the tang and the clam?

Johara sorry to not have any advice for you, but what you've said caught my attention because we just traded a yellow tang back to our lfs because it was nipping our blue maxima's mantle. We traded for a blue Pacific tang a.k.a. hippo tang and the blue maxima is back to being fully extended and happy. However, in the last week or so our gold teardrop maxima has been partially retracted and has some spots in its mantle that look suspiciously like nips... We've watched the tank to see if anything is harassing the gold teardrop, as that was how we found out the yt was nipping the blue, but haven't seen anything other than some blueleg hermits on the gold...

I don't think there's any way to keep a fish from nipping clams once they've started. Other than making the clear basket a permanent fixture over the clam, I guess. Good luck with it!

-Sonja

 

[JHReef]

Boy, I hope I can keep my tangs fat and happy before they get a hankerin' for fresh clam. I have a small blue maxima and 2 nice squamosa clams. Those squamosas have some excellent mantle extension. I've even been wondering how they taste myself, they look so good. I wouldn't want to choose between my clams and tangs, that would be a tough one!

 

[RedSonja]

Boy, I hope I can keep my tangs fat and happy before they get a hankerin' for fresh clam. I have a small blue maxima and 2 nice squamosa clams. Those squamosas have some excellent mantle extension. I've even been wondering how they taste myself, they look so good. I wouldn't want to choose between my clams and tangs, that would be a tough one!

The yt we traded back to the lfs was quite fat and happy, it happily grazed on algae and ate flake and munched on nori. It grew noticeably in the couple of months we had it in the tank. It wasn't a hunger thing at all, I don't think.

Hehe that'd be some mighty expensive sushi, wouldn't it? I'm hoping our new tang isn't munching gold teardrop sushi, I like 'em both a lot but the tang will lose out over the clam, no doubt.

-Sonja

 

[johara]

I agree with Sonja that it's not a hunger thing. My tangs are incredibly fat as I feed often to keep the anthias happy, and the tangs are only too happy to eat three times a day! I've had the hippo for years and also have a powder blue and a sailfin - all for many years and no trouble with clams until a few months ago.

I'm really torn about the clam vs tang thing, but I think it's the tang that's going to have to go - if I can catch it! So far I'm living with the ugly plastic cage while trying to decide and praying the hippo will eventually lose his taste for clam - not very likely I know but I have found a few posts of folks that caged their clams for a week or so, then removed the cage and the fish no longer picked at them.

 

[RedSonja]

I'm really torn about the clam vs tang thing, but I think it's the tang that's going to have to go - if I can catch it! So far I'm living with the ugly plastic cage while trying to decide and praying the hippo will eventually lose his taste for clam - not very likely I know but I have found a few posts of folks that caged their clams for a week or so, then removed the cage and the fish no longer picked at them.

If you do have to catch the tang, we managed to get the yt out very easily with a suggestion of a fish trap here on RC. Take a plastic 2liter soda bottle, cut a hole in the top side of it, leaving the cap area intact, large enough for the tang to swim in. Cut small slits in the bottom for water to drain out of when you pull it up out of the water with fish inside, so it will clear the water quickly. Cut two small holes in the cap area of the top and thread fishing line or similar through it so you can pull it out quickly. Put irrestible tang food in the bottom of it and leave it in the tank. It took 2 hours for the yt to get brave enough to swim in for the food but once it did we had it out in 10 seconds. Have a tank or bucket ready with water to put it in immediately because the trap starts to lose water as soon as it is out.

I hope you don't have to take him out though. If we find out our tang is bothering our clam we may try the cage method awhile too :/

-Sonja

 

[JHReef]

Well I have a Yellow and a Sailfin, so I hope they behave. I'm pretty attached to the tangs since they both eat from my hand and follow me accross the tank like puppies. I'd have to try the cage for a while, but would probably end up trading the clams before letting my buddies go.

 

[RedSonja]

Well as of this morning I'm pretty sure I've found who's developed a taste for gold teardrop sushi... walked by the tank before the lights came on and stopped to see how the clam looked and our cleaner shrimp had it's whole head stuck as far into the clamshell as it could get, feasting away. grrrrrr :mad2:

I guess it's been doing this when the lights were out, is why we haven't seen it going on while watching the tank in the evenings. So, bye bye cleaner shrimp. This shrimp has been in the tank for close to a year, and no problems w/ clam-nipping before now. It never bothered the blue maxima that we know of, and that clam has been in the tank much longer than the gold teardrop.

This is, however, the cleaner shrimp that ate a lettuce sea-slug in 2 minutes flat when we put the slug in the tank. Maybe after that he decided he liked sushi and went looking for more.


-Sonja

 

[johara]

Well as of this morning I'm pretty sure I've found who's developed a taste for gold teardrop sushi... walked by the tank before the lights came on and stopped to see how the clam looked and our cleaner shrimp had it's whole head stuck as far into the clamshell as it could get, feasting away. grrrrrr

Bummer, but good to know who it is. Thanks for the fish trap idea - I hope it works for shrimp too. I moved my clam up high in the rockwork where the tang doesn't spend much time and though it still has come by to check it out I don't see any new damage. Unfortunately the mantle already looks scalloped on one side from all the previous bites. I hope the clam can pull through.

 

[RedSonja]

Bummer, but good to know who it is. Thanks for the fish trap idea - I hope it works for shrimp too.

We set up the fish errrr, shrimp trap last night before we fed the tank but the little bugger was so full on clam he didn't want frozen mysis enough to go in. The peppermint shrimp and some hermits had no qualms about going in thought.

What I did do was put the clam in a small bowl and rubberband some black plastic screen netting over it so the clam will still get some light and flow but nothing that wasn't already in there larger than a small copepod is getting in with it. We left the trap in so the shrimp will get used to it being around. This morning when I looked in the tank before lights-on again the cleaner was trying to get in the bowl with the clam but not able to.

The gold teardrop was an anniversary present to cloudancer from me, so I hope it makes it. It's looking pretty beat up though.

 

[johara]

After the week in the cage, I took the clam out and put it up high in the rockwork with strong flow not on it but above it. Took a little fine tuning but eventually got it so the clam opens up well but the flow above it is strong enough that the tang doesn't like to battle it to get at the clam. It's been about 5 days now and no new bites I can see. The clam isn't totally happy, it's open but not as far as I've seen it open in the past so we'll see how it does long term, but for now I've avoided having to take either the clam or the fish out .

 

[JHReef]

Glad you were able to come to a compromise johara. Red Sonja, man that little cleaner is one focused little bugger. Good luck snagging it out of your tank.

 

[RedSonja]

Glad you were able to come to a compromise johara. Red Sonja, man that little cleaner is one focused little bugger. Good luck snagging it out of your tank.

Shrimp went in the trap the second night. Spent the night in QT and back to LFS Saturday. Sadly it was too late for the clam, we lost it. The blue maxima is healthy and happy though, and the murdering shrimp is gone with warnings to LFS not to send it to a home with clams in the tank.

-Sonja