Lost a clam for unexpected reason

[unbreakable]

i had a nice clam that i lost. i noticed yesterday that first the incurrent siphon was very wide open. i checked everything and this is what it checked out as:

28g tank with sump
Lighting: 250w MH 14k with two 65w pc bulbs
SG: 1.026
Temp: 81
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates 0
Phosphates: 0 (api)
ALK: 11 dKH
Calcium 450ppm
t.maxima 5-6"

today, you could tell that the its threads were loose and wasnt holding on tightly anymore. wouldnt react to light, and it looked like it had pinched mantle. i went ahead and did a FW dip and matched the temp. i knew if i did this it would end up worse.. i tried it anyways.. before i did this, i did have a bristle worm feeding on it from underneath, so i knew it was bad

after the 20min dip i placed it back and it looked worse, and my nass snails came out. thats when i knew it was a goner. ive checked the clams for pyram snails and never found any.


can anyone explain what might have happened? my crocea, deresa, and my small maxima are looking good still

 

[a4twenty]

it's pretty hard to say but a lot of people mis-diagnose their clam with PM ( i'm not suggesting you did ) and a FWD can be very stressful on the clam, especially in a weakened state.


had you changed anything?

are you using a GFO?

what are you dosing? and how?

have you looked for a flatworm?

do you have a pic of the clam as it was going downhill?


sorry to hear about your loss, hopefully everything else is alright.

 

[unbreakable]

dont dose anythign since calcium comes pretty high in reef crytals, alk is within proper ranges.. usually 9-11dKH as well. didnt see any flatworms.

i dont run GFO or GAC. i was going to take a pic but i figured what was the point. it looks your typical clam going to down hill, all hurled up within the shell, shell wouldnt close, and nass snails all jumped in on top of it.

not sure why i lost it. kind of weird. i knew the fw dip was going to be harmful but when i had seen the bristleworm munching out on it from the bottom i kind of figured something was way wrong. even as i cut the threads it wouldnt close at all. i think it was just going down hill from there and the fw dip pushed it over the top.

since the threads were pretty weak i kind of figured something was up as well :\

 

[a4twenty]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11322446#post11322446 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nietzsche
dont dose anythign since calcium comes pretty high in reef crytals, alk is within proper ranges.. usually 9-11dKH as well. .................. it looks your typical clam going to down hill, all hurled up within the shell, shell wouldnt close

that doesn't sound like PM and is actually more likely gaping which is a very bad sign that involves the loss of control of the abductor muscle ( that muscle that closes the clam )

a variation of 9 - 11 in Alk can be a problem for clams, they need stability. i'm also not to sure how much you can rely on high Ca in the salt to maintain the stability in a small tank, unless you are constantly doing water changes. with 4 clams, one of them a derasa i would think you will have some large fluctuations in Ca and Alk, this may be something to look into with some tests.

 

[unbreakable]

what causes gaping? is it paramaters that are not stable?

it doesnt fluctuate that much everyday. i monitor these things every other day.

it doesnt jump up and down from 9-11, i keep my tank within 9-10dKH, preferably 10dKH and ill add alk if they bring it down within a couple of days.

when i changed my water out the ALK went up to 11dKH

calcium doesnt fluctuate much either, but i think im having a problem with this batch of reef crystals or maybe its that way. calcium had been 520ppm and in the reef chemistry section i was advised to let it drop on its own and that it wouldnt harm anything. it did drop slowly, it went from 520 to 500, to 475 to 450ppm-- guessing the clams having been doing this. but the batch seems to be consistently high in calcium

the thing is that the clam started looking bad before the water change though. everyone else seems to be doing well