Maxima not looking so good. Need advice

[Doubledown]

I purchased a gold tear drop maxima (3") about 2 weeks ago. I originally had him on the sandbed, got a smal rock for him to sit on, he attached to the rock and I moved him higher in the tank. My thought was that more light would be better.

Last 3 days he hasn't look too good. He is not opening as far as he was when I first got him and his "mouth" is wide open - to the point that I can see his insides. The mantle around his mouth is also not extending beyond his shell.

I moved him back down to the sand bed today in hopes that he will return to his former glory.

I feed the tank crushed up cyclopese wafer (don't have frozen) blended with lifereef BioPlankton every other day.

Any suggestions on what may be the issue and how I can better this clams environment and chances for success?

Thank you,
Chris

 

[iCam]

Hey. First off, have you checked your water parameters? Also, what lighting is the clam currently under, and if you know, what lighting did it come from under. You might also want to check for little whitish shells on the clams shell (parasitic snails).

 

[Doubledown]

Lights are 3x175 MH, it came from a display under PC. Water params are perfect (ammon 0, trate <10ppm, trite 0, Ph 8.3, SG 1.025, alk 8.6dKH, calc 400).

Thought about the snails and cannot see any. He's still attached to the rock, but did not fully close last night.

Could I have shocked it with too much light? He seemed fine the first week or so until I moved him up.

Anything I can do, or do I just wait it out to see if the clam improves?

 

[Peabody]

Hmmm...those numbers seem fairly in line. The only thing that's low is the ALK, but I really don't think that would cause a sudden problem. It would be best to raise just for the logn term health/growth of any clams.

How did you acclimate him?

 

[Doubledown]

Like a fish, 1 hour drip time per .001 SG difference between my water and LFS (in this case it was only 1 hour since the LFS caters to reefers and keeps corals and clams at 1.024).

The alk I am working on (got to get the B-Ionic dosage right).

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

You also need to try and bump that ca up to around 450.

 

[Lord Mort]

I'm tagging along here as I am in the same situation with a maxima I got a couple of weeks ago.

How much can you increase you Alk in one day without stressing anything in the tank?

My dKH is low and I want to bring it up as quickly as possible.

Thanks!

 

[iCam]

It's possible that the lighting is a cause for it. Did you acclimate to your lighting at all?

 

[Doubledown]

Update:

Clam did not make it. Started to receed it's mantle, became less and less light and motion reactive and eventually did not move at all. When I removed him, none of the bysall threads that were attached remained and he had completely recessed.

Conclusion:

I am an a$$. I failed to properly acclimate him to the intesity of my lights and as a result he was light shocked to death. This is a really bad feeling - one that I won't let happen again.

 

[jda]

Teardrops are overly sensitive. Try not to move it too much. Your CA and ALK need to come up, but should not be a point of contention for the clam.

I would try and keep it higher since 175W MH don't penetrate too deeply like 250 or 400 do.

I have a golden/orange teardrop for 2 years and it gapes for a couple of days every now and then. No idea why, and I gave up on trying to figure it out. It grows like 1.5" per year and is otherwise healthy.