Recent clam deaths in my tank.

[prugs]

Last week I lost a 2 year black maxima with blue stripes. It had evidence of a bore hole threw the soft tissue on the end. It went from looking perfectly healthy to spewing a white milky substance with mantle retracted within 1/2 a day. The bore hole in the end of the clam reminded me of those slugs that eat clams. In my desperation to save other clams in my tank, I removed the clam. When I went to pull him from the tank it closed up completely & spewed a lot of white looking mucus into the tank. Upon opening up the clam I did not find anything abnormal, no snails or other predators.

Today my wife calls me & says that my other prized maxima looks terrible. The clam looked perfect this morning. My wife asked if she should pull it out, as it is has a string of white mucus coming from the mantle. I recommended that she leave in the tank till I get home.I I let you guys know what I find, when I get home.

I hope this isn't the beginning to the end of my 8" blue spot gigas.

 

[mbbuna]

can you please list all results from every test kit you have including SG and temp.

 

[mbbuna]

Re: Recent clam deaths in my tank.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11157965#post11157965 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gem Tang Rider
It had evidence of a bore hole threw the soft tissue on the end. The bore hole in the end of the clam reminded me of those slugs that eat clams.

can you be a little more specific about what part of the anatomy this hole was.

It went from looking perfectly healthy to spewing a white milky substance with mantle retracted within 1/2 a day.

sounds like it was spawning. spawning is usually caused by stress. your water tests should help us find that stress

 

[prugs]

ph= 7.9-8.1
sg= 1.025
alk= 9dkh+
calcium = 400ppm+
Magnesium = 1350ppm+
temp = 79f

I don't test for nitrates any more in a full blown reef with a fuge full of cheato.

Here's a link to my suspect problem.
http://melevsreef.com/id/lg_flatworm.html

The hole was visible down thru the inlet, you could see the rock work below.

 

[mbbuna]

all clams have a hole on the underside of them. its called the byssal opening. most of the time they hold it tightly closed so you can see it but its actually a little bigger then there incurrent siphon.

have you actually seen a polyclad flat worm? i doubt that that's the cause because they will just out right kill a clam very quickly. to me it just sounds like natural or stress induced spawning. do you have any photos of the clams in there current condition?

 

[prugs]

Isn't the byssal opening where the gland & attatchment to the rock are? That's not where the hole was in the clam was. It went from looking like a healthy clam to looking like it was on deaths door within a few hours.

I'll take a photo of the other maxima when I get home.

Also those water parameters were just checked this morning.

Above is a picture of the healthy clam. The hole was on the left side of the inlet as viewed. Nothing I had ever seen before on the clam.

 

[ezcompany]

sounds like a wormm....

 

[mbbuna]

The hole was visible down thru the inlet, you could see the rock work below. [/B]

yes the byssal opening is where the "foot" comes out but its bigger then you think. post the new photos when you can

 

[skinz78]

this clam doesn't look very big to me, and I know small maxima's are prone to unexplainable deaths. Do you think this clam died because it was a small maxima and stressed for some reason?

Also I am wondering, in the picture the clam looks like it has a lot of small folds and creaviss's in its shell and the rock it is on as well. Could there be pyram snails hideing in them?

 

[mbbuna]

heres a good shot of the byssal opening

 

[prugs]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11159042#post11159042 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by skinz78
this clam doesn't look very big to me, and I know small maxima's are prone to unexplainable deaths. Do you think this clam died because it was a small maxima and stressed for some reason?

Also I am wondering, in the picture the clam looks like it has a lot of small folds and creaviss's in its shell and the rock it is on as well. Could there be pyram snails hideing in them?

The clams shell is a full +3" long. There was only a small starfish on the shell when I pulled it from the tank, no snails inside or out.

I have radiant & a chrysus wrasse in the tank.

 

[prugs]

There was no reason to take a picture of the clam when I got home. Nothing but a shell full of what looked like be mucus. My hermits, cleaner shrimp & nass snails hadn't even touched the clam.

The hole that was in the other maxima's byssal opening was as big as the syphon. I never got a chance to see the maxima that died yesterday, it looked great when I left for work.

 

[bluetmax]

Did you ever come to any conclusions? Any more losses?

 

[prugs]

The second clams death baffles me. As I was only able to see it 12hrs before to turned into a ball of mucus.
I still have a baby gold maxima & the 10" gigas.

 

[coraladdict]

GTR

Do you have palys in your tank?

 

[prugs]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11238120#post11238120 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by coraladdict
GTR

Do you have palys in your tank?

Oh oh, yes I do. What do palys have to do with clam deaths?

 

[coraladdict]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11239566#post11239566 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gem Tang Rider
Oh oh, yes I do. What do palys have to do with clam deaths?

Well I've also had unexplainable clams that died since last July, actually I lost nine.Two of them were 5"long one was 4"and the other were small baby clams 2.5".

I'm starting to have a serious doubt about palys being the culprit in my case anyway because they are extremely toxic as you will see in the link.
I can understand that the risk of losing a baby clam less than 3" is high but that doesn't explain why I lost all my other larger ones.

I had those larger ones for a year which almost doubled in size during that time.
I started losing my clams about a month after I started dosing Zeovit such as PIF,K bal.and LPS amino acids.I had checked all my water parms ( po4,no3,ph,ca,alk,salinity etc.) every time I lost one and they were all normal.
For a long time I thought that it could of been the Zeovit products that were the culprit but after talking with an expert on Zeovit he said it was impossible unless I would overdose in which case I didn't.
So now I wouldn't be surprised that the Zeovit could of stressed the palys and therefore cause them to squirt out there toxins as a survival reaction du to the change in water chemestry, as you know they are sensitive .
Since clams are filter feeders ,if they consumed the toxin, there's a good chance that they will die from poisoning.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=158730

After reading the link and especially after your feed back it wouldn't be surprised the palytoxin that's killing your clams and mine and others too.



Did you check your water parms after losing your clams?

Let me know what you think of this.

 

[prugs]

I've read that thread about palytoxin years ago & again. I still find the information inconclusive.

Angels, puffers, rabbit fish & moorish idols dine on zoos/paly & whatever else they can taste. Clams can butt right up to a galaxia coral with no ill effect. I'm leaning more towards a bacteria, but I don't know for sure. My gigas is still doing just fine, along with a baby gold maxima.

 

[coraladdict]

I agree angels etc. dine on palys because it's part of their natural diet but clam don't , they feed on different sp of phytoplankton not the same at all.Mind you that they can still cosume palytoxin whether they like it or not but may not harm them at low levels of intoxication.
Don't you think that if it was a bacteria that it would of killed all the clams almost at the same time ?
That being said, hobbiest who frag palys wear protective eye sheild and gloves.So there is a very good posibility that it could of been palytoixins

If you ever have another clam that dies check your water parms to be on the safe side and check and see if something in the tank has irritated the palys.

 

[oct2274]

whatever it was I would definitely run some carbon on the tank now to clean up any mess. It would also help clean up any other chemicals in the tank including those possibly coming from your corals.