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Well, this is more of an informative thread rather than a plea for help since I've already overcome the problem. I just figured I'd post this so if others come across this 'disease' in their tank they'll know what to do before any losses occur.
Anyway, I recently acquired two awesome maxima clams from clamsdirect, and after a couple of days of looking fantastic in my tank, their mantles stopped extending fully and looked all ruffled and pinched up. It started at one end of the clam and slowly progressed through all stages of the mantle.
Thinking it was a lighting or water quality issue, I moved the clams around and added some carbon to the tank to no avail... the clams still wouldn't extend.
In desperation, I searched the 'other' forum's clam section and found the treatment for the problem.
It's theorized that this 'disease' is caused by microscopic parasites that irritate the clam's mantle (though this is an educated guess), and it's 'cured' by dipping the clams in fresh RO or RO/DI water for 1/2 hour that has been equalized to the tank temperature. You can also equalize the pH to 8.3 if you're really paranoid about it... I didn't but the clams are looking 100% better today after treatment yesterday afternoon.
Please don't think I got these clams from Barry with the disease... chances are they caught it from my squamosa that I had previously. I bought the squamosa from another online vendor of which I cannot be sure if it were wild-caught. There's also still many unknowns about this disease, but at least there's a cure that has been working.
The disease also is suspected of only being able to infect proximate clams... meaning that clams immediately surrounding an infected clam are more prone to coming down with the parasite themselves rather than those across the tank.
The clams were also able to be placed right back into the reef rather than a quarentine tank, though all clams in your reef should be dipped at the same time so that you are sure none are a host that will reinfect the others.
So far things are looking good on my end, though I'm still keeping my fingers crossed. The clams look the best they have in a week.
I wish I had taken pictures of the clams when they were curled up, but my camera doesn't take the greates pix and they wouldn't be very informative. If you search the other forum for 'pinched mantle' you should come up with a thread that has pix and a lot of references.
Hope that helps somebody... I had planned on just 'riding this one out' but finally got worried enough to do a search... I'm glad I did because lack of treatment ususally ends in death for the clam.
Anyway, I recently acquired two awesome maxima clams from clamsdirect, and after a couple of days of looking fantastic in my tank, their mantles stopped extending fully and looked all ruffled and pinched up. It started at one end of the clam and slowly progressed through all stages of the mantle.
Thinking it was a lighting or water quality issue, I moved the clams around and added some carbon to the tank to no avail... the clams still wouldn't extend.
In desperation, I searched the 'other' forum's clam section and found the treatment for the problem.
It's theorized that this 'disease' is caused by microscopic parasites that irritate the clam's mantle (though this is an educated guess), and it's 'cured' by dipping the clams in fresh RO or RO/DI water for 1/2 hour that has been equalized to the tank temperature. You can also equalize the pH to 8.3 if you're really paranoid about it... I didn't but the clams are looking 100% better today after treatment yesterday afternoon.
Please don't think I got these clams from Barry with the disease... chances are they caught it from my squamosa that I had previously. I bought the squamosa from another online vendor of which I cannot be sure if it were wild-caught. There's also still many unknowns about this disease, but at least there's a cure that has been working.
The disease also is suspected of only being able to infect proximate clams... meaning that clams immediately surrounding an infected clam are more prone to coming down with the parasite themselves rather than those across the tank.
The clams were also able to be placed right back into the reef rather than a quarentine tank, though all clams in your reef should be dipped at the same time so that you are sure none are a host that will reinfect the others.
So far things are looking good on my end, though I'm still keeping my fingers crossed. The clams look the best they have in a week.
I wish I had taken pictures of the clams when they were curled up, but my camera doesn't take the greates pix and they wouldn't be very informative. If you search the other forum for 'pinched mantle' you should come up with a thread that has pix and a lot of references.
Hope that helps somebody... I had planned on just 'riding this one out' but finally got worried enough to do a search... I'm glad I did because lack of treatment ususally ends in death for the clam.