Is my clam dead?

[ILM75Dodge]

Originally posted by mbbuna
soak your hydrometer in fresh water for a few hours(preferably RO) and take another SG reading.

when you did your water change how long did you let the water mix. when you poured it in did any undissolved salt go into the tank?

i really think the issue is the high Alk, how did it get that high, and how high is it today

your not adding purple up or anything like that?

Is purple up bad for clams or just overdosing it??

[Echidna09]

He said that because my CA and ALK were really high, and Purple up raises that to influence coralline to grow.

[ILM75Dodge]

ahhhh ok great thanks is your clam doing any better?

[tacocat]

Originally posted by Echidna09
\The xenia is blue cispitularia. When it came the heads were not even visible (see thread in soft corals). It is making a lot of progress and seems happy; as do most of my softies.

Maxima died today.

Gotcha,

It looks like xenia (colorwise) on this monitor. Now that you mention it, I notice that the growth structure is different.

[mbbuna]

Originally posted by Echidna09
He said that because my CA and ALK were really high, and Purple up raises that to influence coralline to grow.

purple up is a useless product. it has tiny grans of calcium carbonate sand in it. this sand cant break down unless the ph in the tank is below 7ph if that happens you have bigger problems to worry about.

when you take Ca or Alk tests after you've been using purple up you get some of these grains in the sample water. then when you add the reagents it dissolves these grains giving you a false reading.

[ILM75Dodge]

Hmmm I have never hear that before thats good to know!!

[Opus123]

Originally posted by Echidna09
I assume you saw the whiskers from the FTS. He is actually a Fire Shrimp. He never goes near the clam, it isn't close enough to the back of the tank . I have to assume it was the dKH that killed him. I plan to do 2 gallon water changes every day until it is down. Tested today again and it was still 15.7 dKH. Calcium was down to 490 though. Soaked the hydrometer in FW overnight and it tested just above 1.025 SG.

Test your newly mixed water and make sure it isn't high. Your water changes won't do any good if the new water has a high dkh. IO shouldn't be high but I guess they could have a bad batch. I know Oceanic and Kent both have had problems in the past, though I can't remember what was out of whack.

[Echidna09]

Thanks, but the water changes are working. I tested Thursday and I was somewhere in the 13 range (I think it was low 13s). If I run into this problem again then I will try that though.