What could have caused this? (Need help please)

[oceanarus]

Just picked up this clam today (along with another). The not so local LFS just got them in hours before I got there which is good in that I got 1st pick of what he got in, but bad in that it wasn't there long enough that this problem got noticed out of the 30+ clams they got in.

Anyway I am floating the bags in my tank and I notice the gouge in the side of one of them. It looks as though something (algea, sponge, something) started near the bottom of the shell and worked its way upward going deeper and wider into the shell as it went up. I've never seen this sort of thing before.

Before treatment

So what I did just incase it is something still on the shell working its way into my new gold clam, this is what I did. With it sitting in a bowl, I scraped at the stuff at the bottom of the groove with some wide, flat, sharp tweezers (stainless steel, the kind you get out of a scientific supply catalog). The stuff didn't want to come off very easily and I couldn't tell if I was just trying to dig into discolored shell. So then I filled a 50 mL syringe with water from the bag it came in (set that aside and kept it handy), dipped a q-tip in some household bleach and swabbed the groove. Then rinsed the groove with a jet from the syringe, doing my best to make sure the rinse water didn't touch anything other than shell. Then I put it in my tank (all of this was done after acclimation).

Here's a picture of it in the tank which I think you may be able to see the groove better.

So did I do the right thing? What could have caused this? Could it still be progressing/advancing? Should I do something different?

Thanks in advance for all your inputs (and harsh criticisms for my rash, uninformed actions)

 

[calvin415]

Not sure on the cause, but this might give you some ideas/encouragement.

http://www.clamsdirect.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1080

As long as it's only on the shell I would think filling it with superglue would help support the shell, and also kill anything attacking it since it would be cut off from the water and any food.

 

[oceanarus]

Good idea!

I suppose filling it with reef putty would work as well.

 

[mbbuna]

wow! i wish i could have seen what was on there before u scraped it. what ever it was was very nasty!from first looking at the hole, it looks like a snail but they wouldnt keep drilling up the shell,when they get thru they feed.but so do sponges and algea. was the shell eaten down to the flesh?is this clam in a QT?i think that u putting bleach on the wound was ok as long as it didnt touch the clam (i know u said u didnt just wanted to restate that) i keep looking at the pics and the edges look round so inless u did that when u cleaned it i would say it was a snail. check it realy good for the next few weeks

 

[oceanarus]

The first picture is before I did anything to it. No where in the groove does it look like it goes all the way to the flesh. It is hard everywhere I poked/scraped at it. Don't have a tank for QT (hence the reason for the drastic immediate actions prior to putting it in the tank). You can see in the second picture a couple places where I was able to scape off the brown stuff, though like I said, I'm not sure if I just wasn't digging into some discolored shell. It looked good at the LFS (it had only been there a couple of hours) and is looking good now in my tank. I'll probably fill in that groove with reef putty tomorrow, I think it has been mauled enough for one day

 

[mbbuna]

keep me posted!! ive never seen anything like that ether