Sick Clam - Help!

[MarsRover]

All,

I have had this squamosa clam for quite a while now. Many months, probably about 7 or so. It is ~3.5" or so purchased from live aquaria.

It has been extremely happy almost every day since i got it.

Then I decided at the OC Reef-a-palooza to get a second clam. This time a tonga. It has been doing really well ever since.

Yesterday morning i woke up and my squamosa did not look good. The day before it looked great. Yesterday morning, it's shell was so wide open it looked painful, mouth agape, byssal opening visible (it was rotated slightly so i could see from the outside, again the shell was so far open it looked painful.

I then took my hand and waved it over the light and the clam reacted and closed. Maybe a little slowly.

Since then it hasn't opened fully.

This morning i see it has an odd weblike filamentous stuff on the shell, spanning between the shell-mouth-lobes on the inside of the shell opening.

I have never had a sick clam and i don't really know what to do.

I searched and couldn't find anything like my issue.

This guy has been extremely mobile recently. It seems to like to nest up against the platygyra that you'll see in the foreground of my photos. About a month or two ago i had to do some rearranging and i picked up the platygyra just to notice the clam was attached. It detached itself shortly after that (seconds) and then a few days later i found what seemed to be the byssal plug. but the clam was 100% happy between then and now.

One other thing, the clam does have a few aiptaisa growing on the outside of it's shell, each tucked in it's own shell scale. I have been watching them for a while and noticed it didn't harm or seem to upset the mantle when they touched so i didn't do anything about it. Not sure if this is related.

Please help!

Thank you.

 

[MarsRover]

parameters. Measured with Redsea Pro kits

dosing calcium now.
Dosing dkH tomorrow.

 

[MarsRover]

parameters actually attached here

 

[jda]

The picutres are not all that clear, but that does not look good. Sorry.

Clams are the ultimate in false-positive. They can be absolutely suffering and look good for months until just a few days before they go. Unfortunately, if it is dying, there is not anything that you can do.

The phosphate is too high for most inverts. The calcum and alk is too low for clams. You didn't mention lighting and even though Squamosa don't need much, there are plenty of LED panels that won't provide enough for any clam.

 

[MarsRover]

Lighting is 400W MH with 24W T5's.

I have been struggling to get our calcium and alk up lately. Been on the see-saw. Then learned why. Purchased B-ionic 2part along with enough saltwater to do about 40-50% H20 change on the tank yesterday.

Clam still doesn't look good. The Tonga still looks great. Sigh... i hate killing things.

 

[VGT]

Phosphate is quite high, as is salinity - why's that? Ca/KH could be better, but should not affect the health of the clam, just it's ability to grow.

 

[MondoBongo]

ca/alk could be better, but i wouldn't be too concerned about those numbers as long as they're stable.

likely your mg is out of whack if you're having a hard time adjusting cal/alk.

have you inspected for any pests, particular pyramid snails or the like? you said you recently got a new clam, was it shortly after that when the old clam started looking bad? i'm a little confused on time line.

the web could be nothing more than a vermetid snail web that got blown on the clam and is irritating it.

can you get any better pictures with the full lights on?

as VGT noted, your salinity is WAY high. is that normally where it is, or is this something new.

 

[MarsRover]

Sal at 1.030 is "way" high? I thought ideal is 1.026.

Unfortunately the saltwater from my LFS came high like that and i have been trying to fix by mixing with RO.

I did inspect for pyramids but didn't find.

the clam unfortunately perished.

And this behavior started the day before i posted the OP on this thread. I added the other clam (Nov 19).

I did an ~40% water change the day after the clam died which was about 2 days after my OP here. I also picked up two part ca/alk bionic to help me maintain my levels reasonably.

MR