Pinched Mantle

[NaH2O]

I thought I'd post up photos of my clams with pinched mantle. I have been working with freshwater dips trying to get them over the pinching. Mike/mojo indicated in another post that it may be a protozoa that is causing this, but it hasn't been proven (that I know of anyway) yet (and I use UV, so maybe not a water borne thing?). Barry - I owe you a phone call this week, but I wanted to post these photos and kind of explain what I did. Maybe others can put their thoughts here, and you can explain what you have tried to do in figuring out what causes this disease.

The pinching in my clams (I call it curling, as the mantle looks like it curls up) seems to get worse throughout the day. I started to get concerned 2 weeks after the clams were in my tank, as this condition seemed to worsen. I performed a RO/DI freshwater dip (matching temperature and pH of the tank) for 25 minutes. Both clams looked good the following day.

Here are the photos of the initial symptom.

The larger of the 2 clams (clam #1) didn't have it as severe:

The smaller of the clams (clam #2):

Clam #1 post fwd

Clam #2 post fwd

Also, I know there is some bad algae....as you will see in subsequent photos...it is dying off.

 

[NaH2O]

2 weeks post fwd.....pinched mantle returns enough that another freshwater dip is necessary. Clam #2 was in the water for about 30 minutes, 25 minutes for Clam #1. Again, I matched tank temperature and pH. The before pics are taken while the tank lights were off, so the mantles aren't extended as much as they do during the daytime. You can still see the curling.

Clam #1. Not bad, but the mantle was curling in the back. It is very difficult to see in the photo.

Clam #2

Clam #2 again

Clams in the dip. Nothing but some pods in the bottom of the bucket

Clam #1 the next day

Clam #2 the next day

 

[NaH2O]

and finally - 1 week post-freshwater dip #2. The little clam is starting to show signs again. Here it is....taken today. Not bad considering, but this is how it started out in my case. A little bit starts, then it worsens as the days go by. Again, this is my experience....I don't know if that is what happens in all cases.

 

[mattseattle]

Hey Nikki - back when I had clams. I had 2 and I went through the same thing over and over again. I was fresh water dipping them every week trying to rid the mantle pinching. This went on for 4 months. The pinching would come back in a week or two. I was never able to get them cured. I finally traded someone for SPS. Hopefully you'll overcome the mantle pinching as you have beautiful clams. I just got tired of doing the freshwater dip to only have it come back in a week.

 

[Barry N.]

Believe me I hear you!! Most of the things about Tridacnid I understand for the most part but this has been a brain drainer for months but still working with it.

Am sending some clams to a marine lab next week for tissue test as well as some other things. Hopefully we can narrow this down.

 

[TDEVIL]

wow, sorry for your troubles, Nikki

Matt, do you know if the clam that you traded is better or did it continue

is this with one type of clam or does that really matter

i havent seen this with mine, but i havent been looking to be honest

i hope everything works out Nikki

Jay

 

[NaH2O]

Matt, thanks for posting your experience. I haven't come across this much, so its comforting to know others have had similar frustrations.

Thanks, TD! I hope it works out, too! I hadn't heard of this condition until I noticed the mantles looking "strange". From there, I looked in the Giant Clams book, then went to Barry's forum, where I found a thread about it. After speaking with Barry, I went with the 25 minute FWD. From what I understand (and Barry please clarify), it is predominately found in croceas, but found in maximas, too.

Barry - if the condition goes untreated, does it mean death to the clam?

 

[mattseattle]

TDEVIL - I'm not sure if the pinched mantle ever resolved itself. I told the person about it and never heard from them one way or another if it kept going or solved once it went into a new tank.

Nikki - I left mine untreated for a few weeks one time thinking maybe it would resolve itself and it only got worse. It would start out as a small portion and continue to grow as time went on. One time it got really bad to the point where a couple inches of the mantle was almost fully retracted. It started looking rather unhealthy.

I always treated both of my clams at the same time as well in seperate buckets. I was afraid they may pass it back and forth if treated at different times. I just wonder if it's something that gets into the water/live rocks that won't go away no matter how often you treat. I even lengthed the time of the FW Dips to almost 40 minutes to see if that would cure it. Nothing did that I tried....and like I said this went on for about 4 months so you would think in that time frame that the clams would either been cured or died from the ailment.

I've read accounts of the pinching mantle killing clams but I can't speak from experience. It could be from an improper FW dip though.

 

[Illusion]

I had pinched mantle on all my clams for a while.. I lowered the Temp by 2F and everything corrected and It hasnt returned since... My temp was 80-82 and not its 78-80...

Its been since August of last year and pinched mantle has not returned since...

I too was doing FW dips and to no end it would always return...

James

 

[Barry N.]

it is predominately found in croceas, but found in maximas, too.

IMO, yes but VERY few maxima. Never have seen it in derasas, squamosas or gigas.

I will try to answer all these past post but today our forum on ClamsDirect crashed and needless to say I am about to cry or get drunk. So I am trying to get things some what back up. Sleep, what sleep.

 

[Maxx]

Barry, sorry to hear about the forum crash....do what you have to do...just dont drink and cry....

I had pinched mantle on all my clams for a while.. I lowered the Temp by 2F and everything corrected and It hasnt returned since... My temp was 80-82 and not its 78-80...

Illusion,
Barry has increased the temp of clam tanks trying to cause PM in them without success....my tank is currently running between 78-82 degrees controlled by a chiller.

Nick

 

[Maxx]

Got the search engine at RC to work for once...here are all the threads with "pinched mantle" somewhere in them...

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...owresults&searchid=4735961&sortby=&sortorder=

Link might only work for a few days due to RC's constant backing up and moving things around in thei system....

Nick

 

[Maxx]

Found some interesting things....
Barry is ALLLLLLL OVER these threads BTW...

In one thread "Julio" states he dips his clams in iodine dosed tank water.
Here is the thread....(Julio starts about the bottom 3rd of the thread)

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=364946&perpage=25&pagenumber=2

Here are the pertinant quotes:

you are better off just dipping them in a iodine bath rather FW

Iodine is used to give corals dips to clear them of infections, if this is the case why not try that instead of putting the clam in FW which can cause more harm. I have giving my clams iodine baths in the past and when ever i get a new clam in just to make sure it does not carry infections into my systems, including my quarintine tank.

i didnt' know you were gonna give it a bath at all, if that was the case then i would have i am sorry i didn't but for some reason it must have slipped by me.

Julio,
Did you ever have Pinched Mantle Disease in your tank? Did you treat it with Iodine bath? Did it work?
Minh

Yes i have had pinched mantle and i have given them an iodine bath and the clams opened up 2 days later to full glory, whcih is why i am suggesting.

Here are some threads at other boards...again Barry is all over these...

http://www.reefland.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8607

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=171048

RC's on back up mode....so I cant go to the 1st page of this thread...
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...page=25&highlight=pinched mantle&pagenumber=4

but "Sahin" posts up this:

I have found that sometimes it takes more than one dip. I let the clam recover for 2-3 days and then dip again. Again larger specimens have a greater chance of survival.

Might be something to think about.

Nick

 

[NaH2O]

I wish the temperature would in my case. The tank temp this time of year is 78 - 80. James, I'm glad you were able to get the clams healthy again.

Well - sounds like this may not be something "curable" in all cases. I find it interesting that the pinching seems to return in the same amount of time after the dips.

Here's a quote from the clams disease thread. I think this is a good point with regards to this disease being protozoal:

That would be a species specific protozoan then, as only croceas and a small % of maximas 'pinch', right?

 

[NaH2O]

I'm probably going to do an iodine dip next. I am going to do some reading in the next couple of days on the protozoas and also read the thread Nick linked in order to get as much info on the iodine dip (i.e. strength & time) as I can. For sure, whatever it is, it can survive a long freshwater dip. Hopefully, lugols would take care of it.

 

[Barry N.]

Nikki,

Let us know how it worked for you. I did that a few years ago and it was to no avail as far as taking care of the problem. With that being said, maybe I didn't use enough of the Tech D.

Still researching the protozoan idea and also am going to pick up a few clams from a local reefer that has the PM and will be sending them to LA this week for some test. Hopefully we will hear back from them with some positive results.

 

[M.Maddox]

You may want to await the lab's analysis that barry is having performed before stressing the clam further?

 

[NaH2O]

The only reason why I don't want to wait is because over the course of a weeks time, the clams start to look bad. I'm afraid if I wait too long (or the analysis takes awhile), then the clams won't be healthy enough to recover from a stressful dip or other treatment. I really am at a loss.

 

[M.Maddox]

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

 

[mattseattle]

Nikki - if I were you I'd keep dipping them about once every week or every other week. I never saw any major signs of stress in my clams after a freshwater dip. Usually within an hour or so after the dip they would be back to normal. They responded to light, shadows and movement very very well.