Hammer damage

[sarmo]

I've had this clam for about a year and it was placed on my liverock. during that time the Hammer coral next to it grew close to one end and began to sting the clam. I thought that if the clam was being "injured" it would move. so i didn't move it until recently. at this point the clams mantle is all white on the "hammered" end. my question is, why didn't it move? and will it recover?
i tried to attach a pic, sorry if it didn't come through. i'm a newbee

 

[supermario]

Clams are not mobile animals and cant move so thats why it didn't move, but I don't know if it will recover.Hope this info helps.but it probably doesn't.

 

[wrightme43]

Yeah man, I dont know how its going to go. Clams are sessile or however you spell that. They dont move around. I would feed it phyto, and just watch it real careful.

 

[sarmo]

i'm a bit surprised that you all feel that clams are sessile. i agree that they don't move much but i've had a couple jump off my live rock and most have moved aound to find their "perfect" spot.
any way it doesn't matter, the clam is coloring back up and can move the side it was stung on now. good news.

 

[wrightme43]

Well you are correct in a way. However they secrete bysall threads and attach them selves to the rock. When on a flat smooth surface they can rotate around the bysall threads. As they get old and heavy they threads come loose and they hold themselves in place thru shear weight. Yes they can fall off the rocks and sorta move in that way. However they have no real controll over where they are going to go. When they move it is a luck of the draw thing. They are not able to escape from predation, poor circulation, move to high light areas, move to lower light areas.