Maxima clam death

[museumguy]

Anyone ever have a clam just die overnight? Friday my blue maxima was fine, looked normal with mantle slightly expanded and out. Today I go in and the shell is almost entirely empty with only ribbons of blue and white guts still inside the shell. No recent changes really, normal weekly cleaning of the sandbed on Thursday, no other changes or recent events that I can think of. The tank was running about 1 degree warmer than normal when I went in.

Nitrates are at about 20 ppm, which is probably one of the lower points in that tank since I took over working on them 15 months ago. The clam has been in there since before I started.

I did see a small chitin in the shell but from what I understand they are detritovores/algae eaters?

Thoughts?
-Tad

 

[tmz]

My thoughts are; predation by a fish,crab, shrimp or predatory flatworm,or possibly eunicid worm (eunice sp.)

 

[RandyO]

Did you notice a ball of mucus around or on the clam shell?

There are worms that coat Mollusks in a ball of mucus and then eat them.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

remember you found a clam eating polyclad flatworm in there, Tad... are you sure you got all it's little brothers out?

 

[Capt_Cully]

Pyramidal snails???? Little tiny snails the size of peices of rice. Also prey on larger snails. You might see them on the shell, or you might not. Might also see them on the bottom of say Astrea snail shells. They do their dirty work over a period of time until one night the host just can't take it anymore and dies. Then your CUC and fishes finish the job.

Eunecid??? still haven't ruled this large pest as the killer that took out all 4 of my long established clams in a one week period.

Just a few places to check Tad. And yes, I'm profiling

 

[museumguy]

Thanks for all the replies guys. The big predatory flatworm I found was in a different tank but I can't rule out the chance that they could have become cross contaminated.

I did look for the snails but didn't see any.

Randy, there was a mass of tissue left inside the clam that looked like clam guts but I'll admit I didn't really pick away at it much, I supposed it could have been mucus from something else.

We do have emerald crabs, peppermint shrimp, pistol shrimp and a big coral banded shrimp in the tank as well as a couple smaller hermits. Never seen anything bother it though.


I'm at my girlfriend's house in Buffalo though, so I should get going before I hear "Are you on that dumb fishtank website AGAIN?!!"

Cheers,
Tad

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

some words of wisdom

some words of wisdom

hook up with a Rochester girl that likes bugs and reef animals
(I used to date a girl in Buffalo.) I used to have a worm that blobbed a clam, too. There's no mistaking worm mucus for clam guts.

 

[mr86mister]

Hmmmm, I'm not so sure on what happened to your clam but I can say that I agree with Gary. I too have a beautiful girlfriend with a baby on the way(I'm extremely excited for) but I get the eyes when she sees me on here 10 times a day. She does listen and pay attention though because she knows everything I have in my reef and understands about the filtration systems.

 

[tmz]

After 40 years of marriage, I can say keeping you're girfriend happy is definitely a good thing to do. But it's ok to have something of your own.

 

[SkiFletch]

How big was this maxima before it died?

 

[museumguy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15110587#post15110587 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SkiFletch
How big was this maxima before it died?

4 or 5 inches long I'd say without having it in front of me to measure.

 

[SkiFletch]

Hummm, I assume it's under decent lighting so, I'm out of ideas other than what everyone else has posted

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

was the rock in both aquariums from the same source?

ever find more polyclads, Tad?

are you able to keep clams/snails etc.?

 

[museumguy]

I think after I wrote this we ended up losing one or two more clams. Over the course of 4-6 months we had 3 clams die quickly and without warning. At the time I thought maybe we had one of the flatworms but I never saw anything suspicious. A couple months ago, so over a year after the first clam died, we caught a 2+ inch gorilla crab in the tank one morning. My guess is that the crab is what caused the carnage. We have not added any more clams since but it is on my list of things I want to add to both tanks in the near future. The giant bowling ball sized clam in the big tank (where I found the 6 inch long clam eating flatworm) is still doing fine.

 

[museumguy]

was the rock in both aquariums from the same source?

ever find more polyclads, Tad?

are you able to keep clams/snails etc.?

The rock may or may not have been from the same source but over the years rock was moved from one tank to the other as needed for aquascaping or to move corals so they all might as well be the same system.

We have to replace the snails every year or so in the big tank, though we have lots of the small guys reproducing (I think they are some sort of turbo).

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

thanks for the update.
I'd stick with large clams.