stalefish
Well-known member
I just had 5 clams die in the space of about 30 hours - all virtually spontaneously. By that I mean, they looked fine when the lights went out, but then in the morning they were just wilted in their shells - 1 found the first morning, 2 a few hours after lights out the next night when I noticed a bunch of nassarius' on them and two more the next morning. The fish, corals and other inverts are just going on as if everything is fine, just the clams seem to be affected.
The tank's a little over 100 gallons in the display and about 135 total water volume. Water parameters are as they have always been: PH 8.2, Salinity 1.026, temp ~80.5, phosphates - undetectable, calc ~ 380-390, ammonia - 0, nitrates ~20, nitrites - barely detectable. RO/DI water always used for everything. I've been doing a 25% water change every week or two, so there's nothing new there.
My feeling is the nitrites are probably a result of the clam deaths and not the immediate cause. Nitrates are higher than I'd like, but have been stable at this point for a while and my understanding is that's not too high for clams. Tank is about 7 mos. old, some of the clams have been in there since early July, others are fairly new. Varying sizes and species - croceas and maximas. I had a derasa experience something simliar about 3 weeks ago. I got him out of there fairly quickly but it was too late to save him, and I just chalked it up as one of those things since everything else seemed fine at the time.
What's puzzling is that they just all died so quickly, like a virus or mass clam suicide or something. The remaining two clams looked fine so I got them out of there and into a 'hospice' tank and they still looked ok as of this morning.
No signs of parasitic snails. I'm very puzzled.
I guess what I'm looking for is if anybody else has heard of this and some help in how to proceed. My current plan is to let the tank go fallow of clams for a while, but I'm not sure how long that should be. 1 month, 3 months, forever? Any help appreciated.
-Don
The tank's a little over 100 gallons in the display and about 135 total water volume. Water parameters are as they have always been: PH 8.2, Salinity 1.026, temp ~80.5, phosphates - undetectable, calc ~ 380-390, ammonia - 0, nitrates ~20, nitrites - barely detectable. RO/DI water always used for everything. I've been doing a 25% water change every week or two, so there's nothing new there.
My feeling is the nitrites are probably a result of the clam deaths and not the immediate cause. Nitrates are higher than I'd like, but have been stable at this point for a while and my understanding is that's not too high for clams. Tank is about 7 mos. old, some of the clams have been in there since early July, others are fairly new. Varying sizes and species - croceas and maximas. I had a derasa experience something simliar about 3 weeks ago. I got him out of there fairly quickly but it was too late to save him, and I just chalked it up as one of those things since everything else seemed fine at the time.
What's puzzling is that they just all died so quickly, like a virus or mass clam suicide or something. The remaining two clams looked fine so I got them out of there and into a 'hospice' tank and they still looked ok as of this morning.
No signs of parasitic snails. I'm very puzzled.
I guess what I'm looking for is if anybody else has heard of this and some help in how to proceed. My current plan is to let the tank go fallow of clams for a while, but I'm not sure how long that should be. 1 month, 3 months, forever? Any help appreciated.
-Don