Just lost my big maxima- any ideas what may have happened?

[sandra6500]

While on vacation (june 16-29th) my sister muddled up my tank pretty badly and I lost much of my coral. To my surprise my big maxima and my much smaller derasa clam both looked great though. I did several water changes and got things back to normal within a week or so. I removed the coral that survived from the tank immediately when I returned so it was just the fish and the clams.

About 10 days ago or so I noticed that my maxima didn't seem to open all the way- particularly on one side. I tested all my water (normal parameters) and since he seemed happy enough otherwise just kept an eye on it. Yesterday evening things just didn't look right- the clam was open but really sucked into its shell. On touch it did close completely and reopen though. Once again I tested water and things seemed fine. Since it was late I figured I would post about it this morning looking for advice, but when I got up this morning the clam was very clearly dead.

Any idea what happened? Do they respond slowly to poor water quality? When I returned back from vacation my water was pretty crappy:

Alk- 5.5
Cal- 280
pH- 7.6
Nitrates- 40ppm


I'm hoping this was a delayed response to the poor water not something else that went wrong? My derasa clam is still looking happy.

 

[TJL]

I'm thinking you are correct in being a delayed response to the water quality issues. Once it was stressed out maybe then allowing secondary problems like pests/predators (pyramidal snails, Bristle worms etc..) to do there thing. Did you notice any on removing the clam? Also clam may have ejected its symbiotic algae much like stressed corals do? The very low PH, calcium and Alk levels are extremely hard on clams. hopefully Barry N will jump in here also with some comments being our Clam Guru.

Todd

 

[sandra6500]

I saw no pests on the clam at all, although I did notice that I have some tiny red bugs that live in the sand (they are NOT on any of my acros). they were not on/near the clam though.

 

[moliken]

sandra, calcium needs to be much higher, at least 380.
ph and alk are also low. nitrates too high, although clams could withstand that level, but your phosphates were probably way high also.
i'm a newbie here, but those params are way bad enough to slowly kimm your tank. what kinda salt? what's the setup? reactors? etc. seems like that might be the issue, one of them, if not the main issue.

 

[mojoreef]

Nitrates probubly didnt help, but the low calcium would just stunt the growth a bit. Clams can be pretty hardy in tanks with high nutrients, when I used to farn them we would put in sticks of miracle grow to make sure the got enough when they were youngings. If their were no sings of pests (snails/fish and so on) then I would say its down to a harsh swing in ph or temp or something like that. Or as Moliken said perhaps a reactor or kalk oops??

Mojo

 

[returnofsid]

I'm really sorry to hear about the loss of your clam! Clams usually don't die, overnight, but sometimes take weeks to "completely die." The low Calcium probably wasn't as much of a concern as the low Alk (though you didn't mention if your measurement was in dkH or Mq/l) and low pH.

The high nitrates would normally be a concern, in any reef tank, but probably didn't cause any harm to your clam. Clams actually "eat" nitrates, so a certain amount of nitrates are actually needed, to keep a clam healthy.

Is it possible that your tank also suffered a dramatic temperature change?
How quickly did you get the parameters back in check?

From the symptoms you're describing, I'd say something caused the clam to start dying, in the recent past, and that it took a couple of weeks for it to complete the unfortunate process.

I once had a clam that suffered a major tear to it's bysal threads. It took over a month for that clam to finally die, but I'm convinced that it was on it's way out, that entire month.

 

[sandra6500]

Moliken- I don't think you totally understood my post-the water quality I listed was when I first came home- NOT were I normally keep my water.

Sid- the alk was listed in dkh. Interesting to think about the dying process being slow. Like I said it did start to look a little off almost 2 weeks before it was finally dead. As for what happened while I was gone- no flow in the tank (so also no protein skimming, heater, etc). Also the lights were on 24/7. I'm sure the temp in the tank fluctuated a lot while I was gone, as did everything else. When I returned I could hardly see into the tank because of all the algae. It took about a week to get the tank to my normal parameters (Alk- 9, calcium 420, pH 8.1-.2, salinity .026, nitrates, phosphates at zero), but I probably did shock the tank a bit with my initial "cleanup". I lost almost all SPS and my LPS was uphappy. The only thing that seemed to be thriving was that stupid leather I've been trying to give away

 

[nata]

clams can be very sensitive to sudden changes ...especially alkalinity and salinity ..so when you did your cleaning it just was too much ...i lost a clam before after intense cleaning...

 

[Somethings Fishy]

sorry to hear about your loss..

 

[Get Pumped Saltwater]

Do you know the origin of the Maxima?