Squamosa loses foot and lives!!!

[Phillips]

Okay...5 or 6 weeks ago as I was lifting him out of my acclimation bucket. He was looking good till...PLOP!...out fell his foot! My heart sunk, my wife leaped for the phone and tore the LFS owner a new one till he promised to replace our clam if it died... but my squamosa lives on!

So has anyone seen this happen? Did your clam survive anyway?? There was some kind of injury where the foot connects to the clam cause the tissue was decaying.

Now he limps around on the sand by snapping his shell open and closed, and likes to snuggle up to my Fungia...kinda weird, but I figure as long as John Ashcroft doesn't find out, he's safe

 

[Physh1]

I have seen it happen a few times. If teh tank is healthy and the clam has good light and maybe phytoplankton to feed on they can survive it. The "foot" could also be the tissue from a previous attachment and it was taken of the rock in the wild and it has just been discarded by the clam. The bysal gland "foot" is rather important for the squamosa, maxima, and crocea when the are young for attachment but at larger sizes their weight keeps them upright.....

Just keep and eye on him and see how he does. Your probably ok.

Cameron

 

[Phillips]

Thanks Cameron,
I'm fairly sure he's out of the woods by now, there's been good growth on his shell for the past few weeks. I've been feeding my tank frozen and spray-dried plankton since I started the tank to keep my sponges, tunicates and tubeworms multiplying, and the clams like it as long as I go light on the dosage. I even get my own plankton multiplying in the tank now since I skim pretty lightly. (I use a CPR BakPak on my 75 gal., so I end up using charcoal & water changes to fine tune the balance)

But man I'll tell you my heart sure fell through the floor when that foot fell out.

I see you're down in Sunnyvale...do you have any recommendations for a good LFS in the Bay area? I started dropping by Tropical Paradise, but the last time I went by half their non-coral/clam livestock was dead or covered w/ parasites.



John