Whats more stressful, medication or fresh water dip

[Lucky Strike]

This is a pic of my 1.5 year old gigas. I am currently trying to locate the medication to treat pm locally, if its unavailable i will be doing a fresh water dip later tonight. I almost feel that i am over reacting but i know if you wait it out its too late. I would like to do the least stressful thing to my clam and give it the best chance for survival.

a) I would like to know what you think of my clam ie am i over reacting?
b) people with experience, please chime in about what your protocal was and how it worked

 

[quicksilverq]

wow thats a bad question they are almost equaly bad in different ways fresh water dip stresses the hell out of clams if they make it through it's more bad than good in most cases and medication usually have some kind of copper or other stuff that kill bacteria that is benificial to your tank.

 

[quicksilverq]

are u sure thats pinched mantel I was told there really dont know treatment other than fresh water driping. and they really dont know what causes pinched mantel as of yet. it really does not look that bad yet. keep us posted plz he is so nice.

 

[Lucky Strike]

yea if i lose him i feel like that will be the last straw. hes the only reason ive kept a tank for over 1.5 years, i can lose all my corals hes the only thing that matters to me.

 

[quicksilverq]

that and he is proably a $300+ dollar giant clam. just keep and eye on him and post up dates offten. I will do my best I dont know everything so If I dont know it some one alts will.

 

[Lucky Strike]

after some reading last night i opened the flow to my xp carbon reactor, put a filter sock on and put my year old still in a box uv on and doing a water change shortly. I know directly they wount do anything, but maybe all together things will get better.. i wanted to fresh water dip him but the ph of my areated ro water is sky high and i dont know how to bring it down.

 

[johnnybravo234]

I was going to tell you to add (or change if its old) a bunch of carbon and maybe think about doing some small water changes but you beat me to it. You really want to save the FW dip as a last resort. It doesnt really look like pm to me. Is there anything that could be nipping or stinging it? The UV is probably not going to do much. The carbon should help. What kinds of fish and inverts do you have. A couple of the other guys should chip in soon. Keep us updated.

 

[johnnybravo234]

One more thing: if you are using phosphate remover of any type you should discontinue using it until the clam gets better.

 

[Lucky Strike]

thanks for the replys - kinda felt all alone. I know uv itself isnt going to do anything, it just gave me motivation to finally set it up and give me some more hope. we purchased a tang about 2 weeks ago, and recently (read 3-4 days ago) I have caught him going completly inside the clam much to my dismay!! Not just like peek a boo like holy crap my clam ate a tang - the tail and all! (i know its not possible) all my yelling and clammering about did not sway him from doing it again. My wife didnt believe me until today, and we are working on removing him. I will be returning him tomorrow morning. the clam has not gotten worse and after the water change and giving the tang something else to pay attention to (nori) for a while the clam loosened up alittle bit but not completly. I am praying that this is the fix! The money i paid for the clam means little to me hes been with us sooo long and become part of the family. we almost left the hobby about 8 months ago, but when it came to selling him off, i just couldnt let go of his shell!! I am holding off on the fresh water dip - ive been down that road before and i think its really stressful and although it was successful i lost the clam shortly thereafter and i dont want to do it to this guy.

Thanks soo much! Will keep updating as time goes on.

Inverts:
Blood shrimp
Purple lobster
Hermits
Snails

Fish
Sixline wrasse
Lyre tail anthias
1 - 3.5" tang - unknown species

 

[johnnybravo234]

Good to hear you found the culprit. FW dips are only effective at treating PM. I dont think your clam has PM so dipping it would only do harm. Good luck catching him.

 

[quicksilverq]

also glade you found the stinker that been messing with him. I hope he gets better so you can post more pictures. good luck catching him.

 

[IslandCrow]

In a presentation given by James Fatheree (he's written a few books on giant clams if you're not familiar with the name), he said he always does freshwater dips on his clams. Part of his justification is that in nature clams will often times be exposed to the elements during a low tide, and those elements may include rain. I've never done a freshwater dip on a clam myself, so I'm not sure of the accepted procedure.

Anyway, hopefully you found the cause with the tang and all of this discussion will be purely academic. Clams have eaten fish that size by the way. I've seen the pictures. Well, they don't really eat them of course, but I know I saw one picture of half a regal tang (at least I think that's what it was) sticking out of a clam.

 

[ezcompany]

You may want to watch the purple lobster as well.