New Clam, many questions?

[Eduardo]

This is my first clam, is about 2", I know is very small but here in my country (Venezuela) is very unusual to find a clam more than 3" because is very too expensive and LFS do not sell it. Well, this is another history, the question I have are:

a.- I originally put this T maxima on the bottom at 24" from the 250W MH HQI light, after a week, today I put it over a small piece of LR at about 14" from light, is this OK?, basically is because my maroon clown put to many sand over the clam during the day.

b.- I know small clam are not completely light dependent, so they need food to survive, right now the only food I am adding (3 drops daily) is the Advance Invertebrate 1 Formula from Marine Enterprises International Inc., my question is the clam will survive until end of January with this food? I will order some Tahitian Blend from brine shrimp direct but I have to wait until end of January for my brother to bring it from US. Any thoughts of home made food that I can make in Venezuela until end of January in case of?

c.- How much time before the clam to attach to the rock?

d.- From the photo attached it seem to be healthy, what do you thing? the pic was taken yesterday when it was on the sand.

Thanks in advance,
Eduardo

[simonh]

a) Yes. I have mine at about 12" from 250W HQIs. Be careful with acclimatisation under the double-ended HQIs. IME they kick off alot of light and I have had Crocea clams react very badly (even when moved up slowly) when high up around 4-6" directly under these lights maybe a UV issue? but the clam shrunk within it's shell and the mantle looked very damaged. After moving it lower it fully recovered.

b) You should be OK until then. When I bought my first clam at this size a few years ago I couldn't get hold of the algae at all and the clam made it OK. However I have found that using the algae provides them with a food source which is even more essential when the clams are having to adapt to new aquarium conditions. Scraping the glass in the aquarium should provide some free floating small algae for them too.

c) Seems to vary. I have had them attach a few threads within a day... sometimes upto a week or more before they decide they are happy.

d) Looks good.

Good luck with it.

[Eduardo]

Happy New Year 2002!!!!

Today after a long day I saw my clam over all the mushrooms :eek: , so I took it and put it back over the sand, Is this a signal that the clam is having too much light? or just bad lucky. Should I put it directly on the sand or on a piece of LR.

Thanks,
Eduardo

[Eduardo]

Ok, now I am concern, the clam have not attach to a rock yet, currently is over the sand at 24" from the light. Why I am concern?, take a look to this picture, I think this is called gaping.

[simonh]

Yes. It looks too be opening it's inhalent siphon alot.

I presume when you said over all the mushrooms the clam had taken a fall? It may have been light, sometimes too much water flow, or a general disliking to the surface can cause them to move or not attach.

What lighting was it under at the LFS ?

I'm not too sure what to recommend. I always place mine on a small bit of rock on the sandbed until they attach IME this stops them getting choked up with sand as they open/close. Although not ideal does your LFS have any other bottled form of phytoplankton suchas Kent? Although not very concentrated or ideal maybe it would help out a little in this situation while your clam adjusts and until you can get some of the Tahitian blend.

Anyone else got any suggestions?

[Eduardo]

Simonh,

Yes you right, the clam taken a fall of about 16" and hit a mushrooms rock, so I put over a very flat piece of LR and this time I moved it to a very quite zone in the sand bed with less light intensity. Until now 10:00pm (EST) seem to be OK, I said OK because it is not trying to move from the LR.

Today I found Marine Snow at the LFS they also have Phytoplex from Kent however they said that Marine Snow will be better than Phytoplex, do you agree? or I should look for Phytoplex instead, so I will use it until I get the Tahitian Blend in case of the clam is looking for food. As you said it is not ideal but it can help.

I was reading that maybe is a sign of stress and not a disease, and now you asked I think that light could be one reason because the LFS use PC lights.

Thanks.

[Eduardo]

Bad News...... I found the clam dead. Simonh thanks for your comments, unfortunately the clam not survive.

[newkie]

Ah man, sorry. Its unfrotunately pretty common for the bysal gland to become damaged especially when dealing with unknown sources. This often leads to gapping and death, although Sprung states that he has seen many clams recover from this kind of damage, in my limited experience its not likely unless you're an expert. You can rest assured there was probably nothing you could have done. When I first brought home my t.maxima I placed it up on the rocks but it kept dumping head first in to a bunch of shrooms, this did not kill it and happened multiple times. Lastly a damaged bysal gland can't attach to the rock work, but even an undamaged clam will sometimes not attach. I ended up placing mine on the sand, but you were right to try to move yours up since t.maxima don't clear out sand as well as others. I think you were on to a good idea, which was to get it to attach to a small rock while close to the bottom, and then glue that small rock in to the rockwork when fully attached. Better luck next time!

Cheers,
Chris