Tiny tank clam spawn sucks!

[fish02]

Hello everyone,

Last night around 11:00 I went to look at my aquarium, all 20 gallons total volume of it. I couldn't see anything, imagine walking through a smoking party in a 10x10 room where 30 people were all smoking at the same time. My skimmer was going crazy with foam. Then through the heavy haze I saw this white goo come shooting out of my two croceas. I had me a pair of spawning croceas! Two years with one of them and a year with the other and this never happened before. The older is about 6 inches and the younger is about 4.5 inches. The bad thing is that I didn't have any water made up since I had just done a water change about 8 hours before the clams went crazy on me and didn't have a chance to get to make more because I had to go to work. I left my skimmer on and threw my hot magnum loaded with carbon in it to hopefully take care of the problem. Apparently it worked because this morning no problems in sight. I mixed up some more water last night and will do a change tonight, salinity wasn't quite right this morning. It was a crazy night for me and a first in the saltwater hobby that I never expected.

My question is, is this any kind of indicator of overall tank health? I know that stress can induce spawning, could stress be the cause? If stress is the cause how do I go about reducing it, a stress ball or one of those bulgy eye squeezy dolls? Keep in mind that nothing has changed in my tank for at least a month. Pretty much I want to know if my tank is going to go down in flames or not using this as an indicator.

Finally is there a way to neuter and spay my pet clams so this doesn't happen again?

Thanks for the info.

 

[a4twenty]

i would be suspicious of the water change you did just before the spawn, did you match tank params and how big of a change did you do?

 

[bencozzy]

my crocea spawmed on me after being out of the water for 4 hours when my tank leaked all over the floor and i wasnt home to find out until well 4 hours later.

fixed the leaking plumbing and a bout 3 hrs later clam was puffing smoke clouding the tank and skimmate was all over the floor and wall nasty stuff.

then it spawmed 2 months later for no reason. nothing had changed in the tank and did my water change that monday and it spawned on saturday?????

 

[fish02]

The water change was nothing out of the norm. I do a weekly 4 gallon water change mixed to 52.0 mS with the tank at 53.0 mS. I have been doing this since I started the tank with the same salt as always and same RO water. The only thing different that I did this time was vacuum out the the rear chamber fuge to get rid of some of the detritus that was in there.

 

[Sour D]

Sounds like my kind of Party.

 

[mrme]

With a name like Sour D i wouldn't be surprised !
hahahaha
goodtimes at the RC.

 

[Rosseau]

Maybe the fuge vacuuming liberating something into the water...?

 

[redbellyman]

has happened to me

has happened to me

I had the same happen in my 90 G. Its def stress induced, and my clam sprayed after I added water, I usually take it right from my heated holding tank and pour right in, but this time I filled the bucket and sat it down while I did some maintance in tank, and then poured in.(not directly on clam) but close to it, and man o man I learned my lesson, the diff temps caused him to stress, and then shot his load so to speak... lol I did 2 massive water changes and everything seemed happy, my corals ate well those 2 nights, they enjoyed the egg and sperm bath. p.s. clam is still alive and well

 

[unbreakable]

how long would you typically wait before changing the water? is this something that happens and is over in a few minutes or is it something that goes on for an hour or so?

got me thinking about it now

 

[redbellyman]

I did the first water change or the siphon part during, I am lucky to have lots of filtration, so was able to clean filter media and adjust that way, but yeah it took like an hour before I could see n e thing, as for how long each spray is first eggs than sperm I dont know..

 

[musty baby]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10964257#post10964257 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sour D
Sounds like my kind of Party.

Which do you mean, 30 smokers in a room or gametes flying around you in every which way?

I deleted a really, really tasteless joke here. It was my 27th yesterday, I guess I'm getting old.

 

[cherubfish pair]

I thought that the laws of nature state that organisms reproduce when conditions are near optimum.

 

[cherubfish pair]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11050114#post11050114 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ryansholl
Which do you mean, 30 smokers in a room or gametes flying around you in every which way?

both of those are gross

 

[mbbuna]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11053827#post11053827 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cherubfish pair
I thought that the laws of nature state that organisms reproduce when conditions are near optimum.

many organisms when stressed will spawn, its a last ditch effort to pass on there genes. one technique that clam farms use to get there brood stock to spawn is to leave them out in the sun for a few hours. when they put them back into the water they spawn