Clam bleaching

[djf91]

Hey everyone,

So I have a 6 inch Maxima clam, that’s been in my care for about the past 9 months. I bought it at 6 inches, which leads me to believe that it is a wild collected specimen from Tahiti. Things were great for about the first 4 months but then the mantle started bleaching (it seems) in certain spots. This coincides with when I started battling my second wave of hair algae in my tank, which caused some of the parameters to shift up and down, as well as the clam being moved around as I attempted to brush away the hair algae. The hair algae is finally on its way out after a ton of effort from me, and the clam hasn’t really been disturbed for the past month. However, the bleaching still continues to spread across the mantle very slowly.

This clam sits about 14 inches underneath the waters surface, under a 400 watt Radium metal halide. I switched bulbs 3 months ago, so this could also be a cause of the bleaching, although I figured clams could never really get too much light. Also, some of my SPS still appear bleached too. I think a lot of this has to do with Hair algae and some Dino’s sucking up all of the nutrients from the water, however my nutrient levels have been brought up and have been stable for the past 1-2 months.

N= 15 ppm, Phos= 0.06. all stable at 8.4, Cal. 500

Has anybody ever experienced this before? Should I lower the clam? (Might be difficult with it being attached)
Would feeding live phyto help it?

 

[ReeferHD]

localized bleaching in clams is usually caused by an infection of some sort, if you could get us some pictures it will help greatly.

 

[djf91]

localized bleaching in clams is usually caused by an infection of some sort, if you could get us some pictures it will help greatly.

Thanks for your response, I’ll get some pics this afternoon.

 

[bushdoc]

Following

 

[CoralsAddiction]

This clam sits about 14 inches underneath the waters surface, under a 400 watt Radium metal halide. I switched bulbs 3 months ago, so this could also be a cause of the bleaching

This could be the problem. Any chance you can place the clam lower? Your parameters look good. Clams seem to recover from bleaching rather well.

 

[djf91]

 

[ReeferHD]

@OrionN

 

[OrionN]

Is that air bubble in the clam mantle? If it is, it is not good.
It is also possible that the bleaching is due to increased light. Decrease light may help

 

[djf91]

No air bubble in the mantle.

I moved him towards the middle of the tank and about a foot lower on the rock work. We’ll see what happens. His reaction time seems less also.

 

[MartinM]

Keep us updated. Have you introduced anything new to the tank that might have introduced a pathogen? IME, it’s nothing to do with light, you could hit the clam with 1000+ PAR and a healthy specimen wouldn’t bleach (although it would reduce the amount of zooxanthellae). Swapping out a bulb shouldn’t cause any issues. 14” under 400W is a little deep though, do you know what kind of PAR it’s getting? Most of mine are ~20cm or less under the surface, also under 400w bulbs.

FWIW, fluconazole works magic on bryopsis and some other hair algae’s if that’s what you’re struggling with.

 

[djf91]

The only thing I’ve really added has been a couple of gobies but no coral or anything else because of the GHA. I am finally starting to close the door on the GHA with corraline and other competitors outcompeting it. Still some Dino’s on the sand bed. Some of the corals are starting to regain color. I think the GHA really sucks a lot of nutrients out. The clam doesn’t look like it’s getting better though. Could it be an infection?

 

[MartinM]

Could also be stress from lack of nutrients, or some other unknown event. Try to keep some detectable no3/po4, keep par at 350+, and it should be ok. IME clams are resilient.

btw, it may need more than 350 par if it’s a blue clam under blue lights, because then it’s reflecting more of the light. Maxima Clams are shallow water species and don’t do as well under heavy blue lights IME.

 

[djf91]

Could also be stress from lack of nutrients, or some other unknown event. Try to keep some detectable no3/po4, keep par at 350+, and it should be ok. IME clams are resilient.

btw, it may need more than 350 par if it’s a blue clam under blue lights, because then it’s reflecting more of the light. Maxima Clams are shallow water species and don’t do as well under heavy blue lights IME.

Yep we will see, i have already moved it down the rock work and I don’t want to move it again and stress it out more. I think it should still be getting a good amount of light from the 400 watt metal halide. I’m over driving the Radium bulb, so it should actually be getting 400+ watts and a more whiter spectrum. Nutrients have been brought up and some of my SPS are regaining coloring while others remain pale. I also started dosing Red Sea reef energy ab+. I’m going to start dosing live phyto if I can get my culture back up and running again. It really seemed to respond positively last time I dosed phyto.

Any evidence of heavy flow upsetting a clam and stressing it enough to bleach it?

 

[MartinM]

Heavy flow will definitely upset a clam if the flow is strong enough to disturb the mantle. As long as the mantle isn’t being disturbed and can ‘lie open’ to absorb light, then that’s fine. Everything else sounds good, let us know how it goes!

 

[OrionN]

Normally Crocea, Maxima and Noae can take pretty good flow with no problem. Here is my Crocea bleach due to shading, not the same as your's bleaching.
Mine is recovering with removal of the Xenia

 

[djf91]

My Maxima looks to be recovering. I’m not sure if this is from tank stability, lowering the clam on the rockwork, or my addition of phytoplankton. For the past 2 weeks I’ve been feeding live, home grown Nannochloropsis on a doser ~ about 1/2 a gallon a day. The color it’s regaining seems to be coming from the deeper tissue layers upwards, if that makes sense. Seems to be a slow process.