Maxima is toast...any ideas?

[Octoberfest]

So I got a maxima clam recently and I think I set it up for its doom now that I look back at it.

When I bought it the foot was attached to a piece of rock and the shop had it set in the sand bed. When I got home I moved it to the top of my tank and figured sine it was attached to the piece of rock it would be OK.

Everything was fine for a few days and last night the clam looked great, even took a few pictures of it because it was looking so good.

This morning I got up and noticed my cleaner shrimp was elbow deep in the shell and the clam was almost sunken in looking. I looked closer and noticed that there were two hermits under the shell. I picked up the clam and noticed that the foot was severed from the piece of rock...not a clean cut but more like it was torn away.

Now the clam is still alive as I touched the mantle gently to see if it moved and it did but I'm 99.9% sure it won't make it now.

My guess is that by moving it up there I exposed the foot and the hermit went to work on it last night.

1. So here are my questions...what do you think happened to it?

2. Should I remove the clam even though its not dead or let it be and see what happens?

Crap I'm bummed out.

 

[a4twenty]

sorry to hear

how big was he?

please list all your fish / inverts and current water parameters.

 

[Octoberfest]

The store I got it from had it under a 250W 14K metal halide in a 36X36 tank with an 18" height and the light was about 12" off of the water. They had it in the sand bed on a piece of rock. I have a 150W metal halide in my tank with a 14K bulb (29 gallon biocube). I started off with the clam in my sand bed then moved it up to the rock work after several days.

The clam is still alive which actually sucks because I know it doesn't have a chance in hell of making it. The cleaner shrimp went up to it in the past 5 minutes and it closed up on him. With that hole in it I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it.

He was about 3.5" give or take a 1/2"

I have 2 a.percula clowns and that's it for fish. I have about a half dozen blue legged hermits, 2 scarlet hermits, 6 trochus snails, stometela (spelling?) snails, 4 or so nassarius snails, and a cleaner shrimp. None of my corals are close enough to sting

Here are two pictures, please keep in mind that these pictures were taken within less than 12 hours of each other. The first picture is from last night. The second and third pictures are from this morning. You can see the hole all the way through the clam.

 

[a4twenty]

sorry, the in my previous post was supposed to be a

the hole through the clam is normal.

did you inspect the clam for pyramid snails??

are you sure the nassarius snails are truly nassarius?? where do you see them mostly??

what is / are those red things on the shell??

 

[Octoberfest]

That hole is supposed to be there....the one that goes all the way through?

Where would the pyramid snails be? Could they really tear the foot off of the clam in less than 12 hours?

The nassarius snails are true nassarius....99.9% of the time the are buried in the sand. I have a local North Carolina tank and I have the "other" nassarius snails in there. After a while its very easy to tell the difference.

Those red things appear to be those snails that anchor to rock and send out the two little "strings" that net things in the water column. I can't remember their name but I think its starts with a "V".

 

[a4twenty]

vermetid worms.

yes the hole is supposed to be there.

the clam can drop the byssal thread on his own. when you say they had it attached to a rock, did they give you the rock with the clam??

pyramid snails are nocturnal, so you would look up under the mantle at night, or hiding in the scutes or under the clam during the day. they look like small grains of rice.

 

[Octoberfest]

When he pulled the clam out of the sand bed there was a piece of live rock that it was attached to. He said that when he puts them in the sand bed he makes sure there is rock under it so that they can attach to it.

The part that has me torn is right now the clam is still alive. Its sucken in the shell like in the last two pictures but when I go up to the tank it clamps shut like normal and any time anything gets near it he slam shut then comes back open.

Here are some pictures when I turned it over to look for pyramid snails. I did find two baby aptasia on the under side of the shell, wouldn't think they would have caused this but I'm sure you guys can chime in on that. They've since been taken care of.

You can see that there is lose flesh sticking out of the bottom of the shell and you can see where it was attached to the rock, as part of the foot is still there.

My gut tells me its not going to make it but I hate to kill something in the freezer that has a chance at making it. Any advice on this?

Here are the pictures.

 

[a4twenty]

that is byssal thread and not the organ / foot.

from the pics, it doesn't look like he'll make it. personally i would just keep doing the sniff test and remove once he starts smelling like death.

 

[Whisperer]

I'm afraid the clam is in bad shape. The tissue is way too retracted. Hope he makes it.

 

[Octoberfest]

Yeah I don't have hi hopes for him at all.

Do you guys have any idea what could have caused this? Does it look like a predator type of thing or some kind of lack of care?

 

[Whisperer]

I wish I can give you answers. One can speculate to no end but clam husbandry is still in its infancy, IMO. I do not think lack of care is the cause.

 

[Octoberfest]

Yeah see I agree, I don't think its lack of care either because I have been watching my parameters for months now because I knew I wanted to get a clam.

I'm thinking its more of a predator got him or it was already on the way out before I picked it up and my clean up crew could tell and just did their job.

 

[OrionN]

This is a classic case of clam looking well and died overnight. That clam was not well before you get it. The mantel extended well without problem but here are no new shell growth (white shell on at the edge)
There was nothing you did other than pick a clam that is about to run out of reserve. When buy clam you should look for shell growth and of course other things, but it is important that the clam is growing.
There are two possible reason for your clam death IMO. On is that it may be infected with parasitic snails that just drain it's fluid at night. When the clam run out of reserve, it died. Other possibility is that the people who had the clam previously did not give it adequate care. The clam was starve from lack of light. The stress of moving to your tank did it in even if you go plenty of light for this clam.

From the first picture one can rule out pinched mantel disease or white spot disease, injury or trauma. The mantel look fine. it just died from running out of stored energy from lack of light or having parasite that suck the life out of it. This happen to new clam keeper all the time. Of these two, I think it is most likely that you clam was kill by parasitic snails. If there is another clam in your tank, please make sure that it is parasite free. You can search this forum and will get plenty of information and pictures about these deadly clam parasites.

 

[OrionN]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15544871#post15544871 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Octoberfest
... The second and third pictures are from this morning. You can see the hole all the way through the clam.

....

You can see all the way through the clam is because of lack of tissue there. This lack of tissue is unlikely due to the scavenger eaten all of it (you clam is still alive from what you said) but because the clam is so starved and so weak that it just doen not have much tissue in there. A healthy clam is full of meat inside it shell not a mostly hollowed empty shell like your's. Good luck with your next clam. They are very beautiful and hardy, but you must make sure that they are parasite free and adequate light and calcium for them. Feeding them help if they are in weaken state like yous when you first got them (maybe yours was too far gone by the time you got it into your tank.)

 

[ginger7286]

I agree with OrionN. This clam was propbably not healthy when you got it. How long had the LFS had it before you bought it? Several of my LFSs post the date on the ticket on the tank belonging to a particular piece of livestock this way you know how long it has been there. Clams can harbor a pest (not sure of the name...help me out guys/gals) that are almost microscopic, tiny little worms or something. They can decimate a clam over night sucking all the meat out of it. I am sorry to hear your clam has probably met it's fate. Good luck I'll keep my fingers crossed for your clam.

 

[IFbettas]

That clam is gaping... probably not going to make it...

Hermits and shrimp will only attack clams when the clam is already on its way out so there would've been some other reason for its death.

 

[Octoberfest]

Yeah it didn't make it. Thanks for the input everyone, as bad as it sounds I did learn from this so that's a positive.

 

[Jay03GT]

to add to what has already been said. This clam looks to have been pretty small, less than 2" right? With small clams the margin for error is incredibly small. If it was say an ORA, and then at a LFS somewhere with sub-optimal conditions for only a few weeks that could be enough to doom the clam. Don't feel bad as you are hardly the first to lose a clam this small.

 

[Octoberfest]

it was about 3.5 inches...well depends on what you're measuring. The shell was over 3" length wise.

I will try again soon but now i feel like I know what to look for.