How to check your clam for pyrams?

[Green Thumb]

Ive just noticed some pyrams on all of my astrea snails, im woried that my new clam might have some too.

I tried to bend it over to see the underneath but felt alot of resistence from the clams foot and didnt persist, dont want to kill this clam.

What is the proper way to do this?

Thanks.

 

[mbbuna]

tip the clam to one side and cut the byssal threads as far from the clam as you can. remove the clam a few hours after lights out and brush the shell with a tooth brush. do this 3x a week for a month then once a week for another month or so

 

[OrionN]

Pyramid that prey on snails do not prey on clams.
The best way to check for this without remove the clams is at night with a flash light. Use a stick to cause the clam to retract his mantle, If there are Pyramids, you should see them feeding on the clam in the middle of the night at the base of the mantle. Two snails or two eggs is all you need to start an infestation and kill you clams in a few months.

 

[Green Thumb]

Thanks to both of you.

OrioN, thanks for specifying that. It seems only my snails have pyrams. The clam is doing good.

That said, what will these pyrams do to my astreas?

Thanks again.

 

[OrionN]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8570686#post8570686 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Green Thumb
Thanks to both of you.

OrioN, thanks for specifying that. It seems only my snails have pyrams. The clam is doing good.

That said, what will these pyrams do to my astreas?

Thanks again.

They will kill the snail, just as their cousin kill the clam.

 

[mbbuna]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8476771#post8476771 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by OrionN
Pyramid that prey on snails do not prey on clams.

there is no documented evidence of this. i have asked Dr.Ron and greenbean for some kind of documentation on this and neither have been able to provide it.

there are over 1000 species of pyrams and i find it hard to believe that a few wont feed on both.

 

[OrionN]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8570754#post8570754 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mbbuna
there is no documented evidence of this. i have asked Dr.Ron and greenbean for some kind of documentation on this and neither have been able to provide it.

there are over 1000 species of pyrams and i find it hard to believe that a few wont feed on both.

How can you provide negative evidence?
All I can say is that it is from my experiences. In my tank, my snails can be full of it while my clams have none. This actually happen in my tank before I know about Pyramids can prey on snails.
In nature there are all kinds of specific adaptations. Snails and clams are so different, from shape to habitats, I am sure right downs to body chemistry. I would be very surprise if there is a parasite that prey on them both. Man and other animals that eat them both don't count. It like looking for a lice that prey on lizard and human.

 

[mbbuna]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8571043#post8571043 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by OrionN
How can you provide negative evidence?

?

so the one species of pyrams you had on your snails didn't feed on your clams and that's proof that none of over 1000 of the other species don't?

I've directly asked Dr. Ron and Greenbean for the research that states or explains this and apparently there is none.

 

[OrionN]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8571165#post8571165 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mbbuna
?

The best that some one can do is to show that this one species of Pyramid does not prey on both snails and clams. Then you can say that there are over 1000+ species of Pyramids, you can't believe that there are not a few that prey on them both.

 

[OrionN]

mbbuna,
How about you do a careful, control experiment show that at least one species that will prey on both clams and snails.
This can be easily done. Just make sure that you put a clean clam in a tank full of snails that are infected with Pyramids.
You clam need to really be clean, with out carrying eggs, and the tank must be clam free for several months before adding this clean clam. Once and if it got infected, you got to show that species of Pyramid also infect snails again.
If you really want to be sure, you can also run DNA analysis of these snails to be sure.


Kidding aside, something must be interesting or important before we spend money looking into it. Which Pyramids infect which host is just to unimportant, or the answer is to obvious, no one is really want to look further into it.

 

[mbbuna]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8571320#post8571320 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by OrionN
mbbuna,
How about you do a careful, control experiment show that at least one species that will prey on both clams and snails.

ill do even better. you go collect every known species of pyrams snails, then send them to me and ill test all of them

 

[RFC]

No disrespect but MBBUNA, your conclusion is 'bad science'

 

[Green Thumb]

After carefull observation, my clam has no pyrams while my astreas do. Orions observations are the same as mine.

The important thing here is that I didnt cut my clams foot off and risk bothering it just because there are pyrams in my tank that might have no interest in clams.

Im realy glad to know that sombody out there has observed that some pyrams dont seem to like clams. That said I will keep a close look at my clam.

Just for the record, for myself, any experienced hobyists observations are just as good as Dr Rons and Jellybeans observations.

Thanks again.

 

[mbbuna]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8572016#post8572016 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RFC
No disrespect but MBBUNA, your conclusion is 'bad science'

how is it "bad science"?

the fact is there is no evidence to support the claim that all pyrams are species specific. untill i find some im keeping an open mind and will be cautious of any pyrams.

i don't think there's anything wrong with asking for documented proof before i just take someones "word" for it. the "experts" that say they are "species specific" must have come to this conclusion some how. I'm asking them "how" and not getting any answers.

one of these "experts" also claims that clam's rely on filter feeding for about 40% of there carbon needs. that's been shown not to be true. they also claim clams will only feed on live phyto again not true.

 

[mbbuna]

Hey guess what folks!! i just heard back from greenbean and do you know what he found?

pyrams are not as specific as everyone has thought.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8576057#post8576057

 

[mbbuna]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8572016#post8572016 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RFC
No disrespect but MBBUNA, your conclusion is 'bad science'

?

 

[OrionN]

This is what greenbean posted

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8576057#post8576057 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by greenbean36191
I found the answer!... and then left notes when I left for the holiday. Basically, the gist of the story is this: Back in 1949 and then in '62 two guys working on the group wrote about how these snails were extremely selective of their hosts. They proposed that this was a reason for the huge number of species in the group. That was widely believed for a long time (and apparently still is). In 1979 someone else did some feeding trials with several species of pyrams and found out that they aren't all that host specific. They offered something like 38 different species of potential host gastropods and bivalves to each pyramid species tested. Depending on the species of pyramid they tested, they fed on between 97% and 61% of the prey species offered. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that the particular species found on snails and tridacnids in the hobby will switch, but it certainly implies that it's not impossible.

If anyone's interested I can post the citations in about a week when I get back from my trip.

We really need to know what they mean by extremely host specific. In my tank, I know that these Pyramids prey on multiple species of snails while others prey on multiple species of clams so they are not extremely host specific. I have all five species of Tridacna, and multiple species on snails in my tank. They are however, host specific in the sense that they don't infected both snails and clams. This is what I observed and know all along.
I will have to wait on the paper, but I bet that these researchers find that these snails prey on various snails species instead of one snail species. That was what they mean by not extremely host specific.

Lets wait a little and hope that Greenbean able to provide us with some references.

 

[Green Thumb]

Just wondering about something, could it be that some small white snails(look to me like pyrams) that hitchhike on larger snails ,ie; astrea or turbo, dont harm the snails??

I was up last night watching closely with a flashlight and saw many of these small snails crawling arround the shell of my snails. They didnt seem to be coming close to tissue. What do these guys feed on?

I understand that the pyrams that bother clams feed on the clams mantle. This doesnt seem to be happenning to my astreas and turbos. Or might it be just coinsidence.

If you guys have any helpfull links about this particularly I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[OrionN]

There are a numbers of snails that look like these pyramids to the naked eyes. I had a huge number of these that live in the substrate and rock. I can see them crawling around all the time until I added a Harlequin Tusk into my tank. The Tusk finished the whole population of small snails in the mater of weeks. The Pyramids were not bother by the Tusk because the Tusk cannot get to them.

 

[mbbuna]

They offered something like 38 different species of potential host gastropods and bivalves to each pyramid species tested. Depending on the species of pyramid they tested, they fed on between 97% and 61% of the prey species offered.

did you not read this part?

ill wait for the report but it sure looks like between a 61% and 97% chance you can't say they wont do it