What could/would kill a Crocea Clam or was it just sick?
I got a new Crocea Clam about 3-4 days ago. All was going well I thought until today when I found the shell upside down and the body of the clam looked like snot inside the shell. By this point there we hermit crabs all over the shell cleaning up what I can only imagine was a dead clam. So, I ask, what if anything could I have done wrong.
Let me run down the common set of stuff.
Got it from a LFS that said it had been in their tank for months, foot looked good and clam was open and not gapping. I took it home and after a 30 minute temp acclimate, dumped it into the water. I am running pretty strong Halides, so I put it on the sand. At the end of the first night, I noticed the clam was knocked over, I am guessing from the cleaner stars as they screw with everything on my sand, so I moved it to a better spot out of their normal path.
The next day it was doing well and seemed to be about half open, but never really opened all the way up.
Today, I found it dead.
As for tank mates, I have a mixed reef with a good number or meaty corals on the bottom such as lobo brains and chalice corals and they never get picked on. The clam in not near any of the LPS.
For fish, I have a 4 line, a few tangs (scopas, yellow, hippo, naso), a diamond gobby, an engineer goby and the rest are too small to even consider. I have a good variety of snails, hermit crabs, 2 cucumbers, 2 coral banded shrimp, 1 pistol shrimp, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 blood shrimp. There are also 3 cleaner stars.
The water parameters are checked weekly and the water is SPS pure with all of the corals thriving.
~0 phosphate/nitrate
420s calc
8-9 dkp
7.9-8.3 ph
1500s mag
water is always between 79-80
The tank has mod to high flow and the clam was placed in a good flow area without direct flow hitting it.
With all of that, is there anything I could have done wrong, did something maybe eat it or did the clam just check out on me? I want clams, but I dont want to keep killing them if they are not right for my tank.
Please help me if you can. I would like to go get another one tomorrow if it wasn’t my tank.
Side note, I have 2 cleaner clams that are on opposite sides of the tank and both are still alive.
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