Pinched Mantle

[NaH2O]

chris&barb - I would either attempt to treat the clams in a separate system, or take a piece of live rock with a feather duster on it and see if it is effected by the praziquantel. This is what the prazi-pro says it treats for marine livestock (in the land animal world it treats agains tapeworms and flukes):

Treats flukes, tapeworms, flatworms and turbellarians

I would be concerned with a die-off of a large amount of worms causing a small cycle. We have so many different organisms in our tanks....I don't know to what degree they would be effected.

Hope this helps

 

[Barry N.]

Mike, ya ya ya. Am going to start the Clam Work Shop this week when I am not answering PM problems. LOL

In the work shop we will first discuss selection and then move from there.

 

[NaH2O]

In the work shop we will first discuss selection and then move from there.

Oh man - there's more to it than picking out the prettiest?

Look forward to the workshop Barry!

 

[Barry N.]

Yes a little more.

Now I need to go wipe off my Harley since I took it for a ride today. :lol:

 

[chris&barb]

thanks Nikki
im going to take out the featherdusters and dose in the AM.i moved everything back into the main system because i think that the protozoan has found a place to hide in there.i hadn't had a clam in the tank for 3or4 months so im going for broke in the morning ill keep you posted

Barry im in to a work shop! sounds like fun.

 

[Lunchbucket]

crap i think i have PM on two of my croceas. not sure where i got it but a buddy of mine sold me a crocea that has been fine no PM. now i need to read a TON of threads and figure out what to do.

if someone wants to give me a summary to save tiem that would be great and don't be surprised if i ask a lot of you guys ?'s

they have been looking "funny" or curly for about 2-3 weeks. i thought it was irritation due to some slime that the new crocea was putting out when building threads. guess not now.

hope i can save them all
Lunchbucket

 

[NaH2O]

chris&barb - how are things looking after the treatment with praziquantel? Also, what dosage are you going to try?

Lunchbucket - Sorry to hear you are dealing with this. See if starting on Page 7 of this thread helps out. The beginning of the thread shows the steps I took with different dips, and then Barry took in a couple of clams from a hobbyist to be tested at a lab, which was discovered caused by a protozoan. On the page I linked, you will find the dose for Metronidazole to try in QT. It didn't work for my clams long term, however, my clams had been through a number of treatments, and I am not sure if the stress from all that led to their demise. I tried freshwater dips for up to 40 or 45 minutes...I'd have to go back and check the thread for sure. I also attempted an iodine dip on the clams. I did a couple of weeks with metronidazole in QT. The last thing I was going to try is posted above...praziquantel (prazi-pro). Nick/Maxx had success with one of his clams by doing metronidazole and hyposalinity. The tough part for me is if the protozoan is in my tank, and living on something other than clams. I am going to go 3 months without clams and see what happens when I add another to the system. If I get PM again, I will know it is somewhere in my tank.....perhaps a boring clam carrying the protozoan?

 

[Lunchbucket]

so where do i get metronidazole?? isn't that used for lady problems..like lady infections

also where to get prazi-pro?

Barry you had any luck??

thanks
Lunchbucket

 

[the mad reefer]

it's flagyl and if you have a cool vetenarian you can get some from them. I treated for 2 weeks and kept in qt for another 3 weeks. All looked good until i put them back in the main tank. It only took a couple of days for it to come back. Lost my 2 maximas but the 3 crocea's are still alive. still pinching slightly but still alive. I have 2 crocea's in a seperate tank that are doing great. no sign of pm. not sure what to do about the pm crocea's. they look good other than a little ruffled around the edge's. I think i will leave them be for now. hth

 

[Maxx]

Okay, I tried posting this up at home twice, but my computer was having fits and locking up...admittedly the post was pretty long, so maybe that was the issue. Regardless, here I am at work, trying for the 3rd time....at a much slower connection speed too....sigh.....
anyway...

Eric,
I had two Croceas that showed signs of PM after a month or so in the tank. I placed them in a 20H QT/ Hospital tank and treated with Seachem's Metronidazole (5 grams) at 10x the reccomended dose. At that dosage, each 5 gram container of Metronidazole will treat 60 gallons. Metro has a short half life so you will need to do a full dose every day. You should also have plenty of salt water on hand for emergency water changes since my clams spawned from the stress of the treatment...and my clams werent the only ones to do so.

04-27-2005
Yesterday I changed the water in my 20 gallon Q-tank. I think one of the clams had spawned in the tank as the water was suddenly cloudy and kinda unhealthy looking. When i say changed the water, I mean a 100% change.

While I was at it, I decided to go hypo-saline in addition to the metronidazole treatments. The salinity is currently at 1.015 by refractometer.
All water introduced, (which is how I add metronidazole...mix it in the water thoroughly preventing it from clumping up and not dissolving properly) will be RO/Di water...this should further lower the salinity down some.
Currently, neither clam has been showing signs of PM for last 3 days. I think I have enough metronidazole to last for another 3 days. I will attempt to keep the clams in a hypo-saline environment for another week following the last metronidazole treatment in an effort to eradicate this damn protozoa.
Both of my clams have "browned out", but I'm confidant they will color right back up when placed in the main tank again.

Nick

The two clams were in a hyposaline environment for about 2 weeks. One clam did not survive the treatment, the did and is in my tank with two other clams added later. I havent seen any signs of PM for almost 4 months.

more to follow in subsequent post...

Nick

 

[Maxx]

Hmmm, evidently, I'm attempting to load up too large of a post and thats causing the computer issue...cause I just had an issue here at work too...

anyway, here goes another shot...

Well I placed my blue Crocea back in the tank...it looked pretty bad for awhile...but has since turned around. The other (my Teardrop Crocea) unfortunately didnt make it.

Both Clams were in a 20 gallon tank filled up to about 12 gallons. The tank was lit with a single 175 watt 10 k bulb. They were both treated with several weeks of Metronidizole and also subjected to a 2 week period of hyposalinity in which the salinity of the tank was lowered to 1.015. Tank was kept at 80 degrees by a heater. Both clams browned out pretty badly, I'd never seen poop brown clams before.

The blue one seemed to get over the PM easier even though it was the first one to show signs. After a period of 2 weeks w/o showing signs of PM I placed it back in the main tank. Despite being told to do otherwise by Nikki and Mojo, I did not acclimate the clam to the main tank conditions. Instead I just placed it on the bottom of the tank so it could adapt to the increased lighting (dual 250 watt 10k DE's over a 21 inch deep tank). It gaped for the first day, and began to get lighter in color for the first week and a half. It has since regained alot of its color and I expect to be able to put back up where it used to sit (half way up the tank on a ledge) in a week or so. So far I havent seen any signs of PM for about a month in this clam....hoping to stay that way.

I did not acclimate the clam to my tank conditions because I wanted to make conditions as difficult on the protozoans as possible. I was pretty certain the clam would survive, and figured the rapid change in environment might be detrimental to any remaining parasites in/on the clam.

My Teardrop Crocea never made it out of the Q-tank. It was showing more mantle curling almost immediately after I placed the blue Crocea back in the main tank. It began to look worse and worse each day. Finally, it was no longer reactive to light stimulus, (wouldnt contract back into the shell reflexively when a bright flashlight was shone on it, or when the lights were removed to access the tank.) and it did not move at all when I touched the mantle with my finger. I attempted to see if it was still attached to the rock, and discovered that the entire byssal gland had been released by the clam. The byssus was still attached to the rock, but the clam tumbled free, so I removed it from the tank... The clam did not move/react in any way, shape, or form when it tumbled free of the rock or when I removed it from the tank.

So far I'm 50-50 for success vs losses in battling PM. I'm not ever buying clams that originate from Vietnam again....

Just thought I'd share my results in dealing with all of this. Better luck to the rest of you....

Nick

I feel that the lowered salinity and the Metro treatments together were responsible for handling the PM in my system.

Nick

 

[Maxx]

I also ran into guy on RC who treated his tank with Prazipro.

A fellow reefer asked me if I would explain my treatment for pinched mantle with Prazi Pro in detail and I figure it's better to post it here for everyone to see:

Upon receiving a clam near the 1st of June (small 1.5 inch croacea) I discovered what I observed to be pinched mantle. This was confirmed when the tank he was sold from had a gigas die from pinched mantle. The clam did not look like it was doing terribly but in order to head the problem off at the pass if you will, I began researching methods of treatment. FW dips will help the clam out for several days but the infection usually returns within a week. I know I took a huge risk (my tank has extreme flow and is all SPS and that small croacea along with a large 6 inch one. The 6 inch clam showed no signs of infection but I wanted to rid the water column of the infection as well. I read somewhere (I honestly can't remember where but I imagine it was on clamsdirect's forum) that people had sucess with prazipro. I read the label of the bottle and it claimed to kill fluke (the infection is a type of protozoan) and was totally reef safe. I have a 30 gallon aquarium with a 10 gallon sump for reference but used whatever the recommended dose was, I believe 1 tablespoon. I turned my skimmer off for 6 hours then adjusted it down when I took it back online (Euroreef CS6-1). Within the next day, the clam was the most expanded it had been and within two days was out like a normal happy clam should be. I experienced no side effects save the skimmer going a little crazy and it's now been 3 weeks with no sign of the infection returning. Oh, also I added the dosage only once and to the overflow to give it a maximum mixing time before going into the tank. Hope this helps and let me know if I can do anything else for you!

*I'd also like to include a list of the corals and critters that were unaffected by the medication (it supposedly kills flatworms as well )
-Various fish including a Potter's Angel, chalk basslet, and yellow assessor
-Shrimp including cleaner and peppermint
-Various hermits and an emerald crab
-Snails (Astrea, Turbo, Cerith)
-Acropora species including torts, stags, and a small tabling frag
-Montiporas
-Blastos
-Zooanthids and Palythoas of various colors

John

This is what Nikki had to say about it...

Ahhh - the "name brand" for this medication is Droncit in animals (praziquantel active ingredient). We used this to treat animals for tapeworms. The only thing I would worry about in regards to treating the entire tank, is whether or not I have a micro population of worms that might die off creating an algae bloom. I might give it a whirl in QT....maybe I"ll toss whatever snails I can catch in there too. I'll have to think about it. The big difference with metronidazole is it is an antibiotic, so more to be concerned with.

Nikki

I would seriously consider putting the clams in a QT/ Hospital tank and treating with either of those two meds....start with Prazipro maybe and go from there....

HTH,
Nick

 

[chris&barb]

Nikki
this is what i have done so far

i treated with the Prazipro at the recommended dosage.the first day i didn't notice any improvement in the clams,but they looked agitated as well as my carpet anemone,a few of my mushrooms and a toadstool leather.this continued until day 4 of the treatment.on the morning of day 4 i did a 80g water change(about 1/5)and then a 20 min FWD than retreated at the same dosage.so this is day 6,7 in the morning. there is a big improvment in about 80% of the clams,the others look like they might be starting to pinch again so i will remove those clams in the am,to a 30min FWD then into the QT and keep an eye on them for a day or so.also i haven't run my skimmer until the morning of day 6,so its on now(tried to run on day 2 but it was pumping out about 1g per min) and still pumping like crazy,also running GAC.

anyone else thinking about doing this treatment in there main tank like i did DON'T!!!!!!!! i've had a small cyno outbreak and some receding in some acros. i think that my have more to do with the skimmer being off but there was no way for me to run my skimmer with the out put it had.

i will give more detail when i know more.

Chris

 

[Lunchbucket]

Nick - holy crap thanks for all the nice summarized info..very very nice of you. helps me sift through the knowledge and nonsense

main thing i'm concerned w/ is reinfecting when the clams go back into the display tank. i'm sure the treatments work but then when you get them back to the display it is a crap shoot from what it sounds...or am i wrong?

i guess i'll get some prazipro from dr f&s ASAP. not sure how long the clams have had it or how long they will live from it

would a 10gal be enough of a tank to treat in? so one treatment for 6hrs like an interceptor treatment (in a QT of course)??? longer? days?? add more doses everyday?

if someone could please help me out more that would be great. until then i'll try to get some meds here asap

Lunchbucket

 

[Maxx]

Eric,
A 10 gallon would be fine for a QT/Hospital tank for your clams. I used a 20 cause that was what I had....
I have absolutely no experiance with the Prazipro, so I cant give an informed answer.

I know several folks have said that their clams were re-infected once they re-entered their main tank...but that wasnt the case for me. Maybe there are different protozoans out there that are able to survive on a substitute host for a lengthy period of time, I dont know. But my feeling is that the parasite is just being knocked down (population wise in the clam) by the treatments, (whichever the person is using) and is later able to rebuild the population up to a level where its now presenting symptoms in the clam again....I dont know for sure, thats really nothing more the a WAG on my part without any science to back it up.

I know Barry treated all of his clams and systems with Metro and hasnt had an episode of PM since. I treated with Metro and went hyposaline and havent seen PM since. Nikki treated with metro and her clams never got over PM. Both my clams and Nikki's clams came from Barry, from the same shipment....so I'm reasonably certain (another WAG) that the protozoan infesting my clams and Nikki's were the same species....yet we had different results.

One of the things that was determined by the Lab that Barry had analyze the clams was that FW will kill the protozoan. However, in a FW dip, the clam contracts and withdraws into the shell, which protects the protozoan in its tissue.. This is why I decided to go hyposaline and lower the specific gravity. If the clam is open it will be exposing the protozoan to the lowered salinity and hopefully make it to tough to continue to reproduce in the clam.

Hope this all makes sense. Whatever route you choose, (Metro, Hyposaline, Prazipro, or any/all of the three together), I would definately do it in the QT tank.

Nick

 

[NaH2O]

so where do i get metronidazole?? isn't that used for lady problems..like lady infections

Hmm...not sure which you are referring to ? It is used against anaerobic infections, protozoal infections (like Giardia), and other uses (intestinal issues).

Chris - I'm not sure how closely you monitored your parameters during treatment, but did you notice a chemistry swing of any kind? Just curious. Keep us updated on how things go.

 

[chris&barb]

Nikki

i didnt see a change in PH,CA or alk,and thats realy all i ever test for.i know thats not the best way but i just watch everything,and dont laugh but, smell

 

[Barbie]

You're thinking of another product . Metronidazole is marketed for use in people and dogs as Flagyl. You'll need a prescription to get it, unless you order the forms available from Pet Solutions and those types. They are harder to get good dosing from though, IME. If you have a good relationship with your vet, you can usually explain the dosing and treatment procedure and get enough to treat your tank.

Barbie

 

[NaH2O]

Barbie - SeaChem makes a metronidazole powder in 5g containers. The recommended dosage for PM is 1 gram for 12 gallons. If I remember correctly, the container says what the measurement of the scoop is. Also, I feel it is important to not treat the display tank, as it would likely effect the bacterial populations.

 

[Barry N.]

I feel it is important to not treat the display tank, as it would likely effect the bacterial populations.

I agree !

We never did treat our holding tanks but did use it in our quarantine tanks and did get some small spike from some of the die off of the LR but nothing major.

With our holding tank we took all equipment down and cleaned it as well as all new water in our holding tanks. No problem since.