Crocea Clam Sits on its Side

[skibum9884]

My new crocea clam is sitting a bit on its side. Interestingly, it sits facing away from my MH lights. Besides this it looks to be healthy. Any ideas of what I can do? I'd really like it to sit up straight! Thanks.

[InvaderJim]

It's probably getting too much light. But it somewhere where it's shaded.

[otiso777]

How long have you had it?

[SCR]

They do like a lot of light.

[skibum9884]

I've had it about a week now. I moved it 180 degrees and it still seems to lean to one side (the same side as before, so it doesn't seem to be the light). Is it possible there's something wrong with it?

[ganjero]

maybe the current is coming from that side, clams are also filter feeders, they get food from the currents. Or it can be the current but the exact opposite, maybe the current is to hard and its trying to face away from it.

[Blown 346]

Crocea's will fall over in the sand, they will try to attach there foot and cant in the sand. Place the clam on some liverock and it will be fine.

[otiso777]

^^^ What he said ^^^

[skibum9884]

I'd like to keep it in the sand. Could I place it on a disk of some sort, and then push some sand around to cover up the disk?

[chujai]

mines on the sand, it found a snail shell in the sand underneith and attached itself to that.

[Racing1]

crocea's in the wild require rock to attach. They can bore into the rock with their shell. Once attached they are kind of hard to remove. They also like quite a bit of light...

[McCrary]

Crocea clams are one of the more demanding clams and need good water quality. What are your parameters? If you do not have good water quality a crocea clam will often turn on its side, if the problem is not corrected the tissue will begin to die or expel its pigment. As stated above they love light and will be more brilliant when placed in very well light places in the aquarium.

[oct2274]

like others have said above, crocea clams should not be placed in the sand. they need something hard to attach to. you could place it on something and let it attach, then move it to the sand, but crocea's need alot of light and usually need to be in the mid to upper part of the aquarium unless you have really intense lighting.

[trmiv]

Provided you have enough light for it to be on the sand, you can put a flat rock under it. When I had my crocea I used a clam shell (collected on the beach on vacation) under it, which worked perfectly since it had the perfect shape for the clam to sit. I always kept mine high on the rocks though, even though I had it on the clam shell. Having it on the shell made it a breeze to move when I upgraded tanks though.

[Macimage]

I also put a small flat rock under mine on the sandbed. It works great.

Joyce