Lost my Baby Maxima

H

hollywd

New member
I'm really upset... I had a baby gold maxima with awesome colors that I got about a month ago, that just died. :(

He was about 1.5", and I fed about 3x a week using the bottle top method. I had him placed on the sand, and I have a pair of 250w 20k halides (90g tank).

He was doing ok until a couple days ago I noticed he was gaping. I thought maybe the lights weren't enough for him, so I moved him higher in the tank... obviously it didn't help.

I have 3 things that I think might have hurt him: like I said, maybe the light wasn't enough.. I thought he would be ok since they rely so much on feeding.

Second possibility: I just got a refractometer and discovered my sg was off by 4 points - 1.030! I have been slowly lowering.

My third suspect is pyramid snails. I have a derasa in my tank that has grown very well, and I know I have the snails. I would check the baby every time I fed him, and would occasionally find the snails on him (usually none or 1 snail, but the other day I found 3).

Are these snails my clam-killer? Obviously it would take less snails to affect the baby than the derasa.

If it is the snails, does this mean I'll never be able to buy baby clams?

Here's a pic when he was happy... he made me smile, I felt like a proud parent. I'm so sad now.

28637gold_maxima.jpg
 
Your lights are fine. Don't worry about those... assuming that the bulbs are still good.

The SG and snails were likely the contributing factor. These little dudes are pretty sensitive anyway, and those things probably did it in.

You should get rid of the snails before you get a clam of any size. They will eventually irritate most clams to death - even large ones. Search for threads on pyram snails.
 
Bummer I hated to read that, I have never had the dreaded pyramid snails, I dont know for sure from experience if they are clam killers but I do know there not good ither. I have two baby maxs one has done real well for 3 months now, the other was a project that I purchased knowing it was in bad health for 20 bucks....both are in the one inch size range, for 10 days now I have been feeding them every day...and the sickly one has been recovering nicly more mantle extension, and the incurent siphon is doing better and less gaping...the other baby max that has beem in great shape all along is doing even better...and putting on some shell pretty fast...

I think the key to having sucess with baby maxs is one great water quality, the absence of preditaiton, and parasites....plus feeding them by the bowl technique, that way you can ensure that the clam gets all the phyto and the tank water dosent get too dirty....

As far as the snails I would buy a 6 line wrass and maybe it can put a hurtin on the pyramid population for you...or a yellow coris or lepard wrass....
 
Murderous damn snails... I will now take extra pleasure in squashing them when I find them.

Ok, now I need to figure out how to eradicate these things, because they've really made me angry. I haven't gotten a 6 line to date, because I have a pair of mandarins. I'm lucky because both my mandarins eat prepared food, but they still pick on pods all day and I'm worried they won't get enough to eat if I get the wrasse... any thoughts?

Do the other wrasses you mentioned eat pods too? Looks like I should do some searching on pyramid snail destroyers.
 
Oops, must have posted just when you did, jda... I will read up on those leopard wrasses... not sure I've seen them in any of the local lfs, though. I see the 6-line all the time.
 
My Six line will eat prepaired foods as well....an ocasional flake but prefers meaty foods....like frozen mysis and bine shrimp, wish my manderin would eat prepaired foods....but I keep a manderin, six line and a baby dwarf lion in a 75...they all go after pods and mysids but then agen I keep a fuge and a sump to maintain pod levels...Im also adding 120 gallons water capacity to the system, as well...im hoping that the pods numbers will explode as well....

You could check out www.clamsdirect.com there forum has some cool information you can read up on how to deal with those damn snails....
 
That's encouraging you have a 6-line and a mandarin... and I will check out that website for info. I have a sump and 12 gallon 'fuge as well... just upgraded about a month ago (built a bigger sump, added refuge, and replaced DYI skimmer with ASM G3.

Thanks for all the advice..
 
Gapping is when the incurent siphon, the hole that sucks water into the clams gills and digestive tract is way wide open...like a gapeing hole....when a clam dies its basicly melts, and the hermits swarm it....
 
The leopards will eat pods. They will also eat flatworms, small snails, small nudis and just about anything else that they can catch. Mine especially like formula 2 pellets which is just about all that I feed. I would worry about them and a mandarin, but I have never had them together. The leopards always have full bellies.

The last 6-line that I had quit chasing pods when it started eating pellets... kinda like it got lazy. It jumped out so I got the leopards. 6-line and leopards will not usually mix.
 
jda - which wrasse do you think did a better job getting the snails?

my male mandarin loves formula 2 pellets as well... go figure.

and this might seem like a strange question, but do you think the leopard contributes much more bioload than a 6-line? they are bigger, right? the reason I ask is because I don't want to add a lot of bioload, if I can help it.

I know the 6-line are small, but I really like the look of the leopard...
 
Leopard do get bigger and will be more of a bio-load. They are by no means "gimmie" fish in captivity. If you get a good one, then they are great, but they can die within a few days too. They are hardy and awesome under the right cicrumstances. Read that reefkeeping.com article on them. Leopards are usually not that expensive either. Potter's (from hawaii) are some of the more hardy IME.

6-line are easy to keep, but agressive toward other wrasses. 4-line is also an option. They do stay smaller.

Yellow coris wrasse are also known to attack the snails, but they probably should be removed when they get bigger.

If you have the snails, get them out if you want clams. Forget about the bio load for a while and just get them out.
 
Well, I ended up with a yellow coris. LFS had those and sixlines... no leopards (just as well, I'm not sure how a leopard would have worked with my mandarins). The sixline is a neat looking little fish, but I was worried about their aggressiveness.

With the yellow, I figure if he doesn't do the job I can always try adding a leopard in the future... take the time to find one that is eating, etc.

He's a cute little guy... hung out in front for awhile, then disappeared when the lights went out.. I'm guessing he's in the sand somewhere.
 
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