Clam dying :(

[OrionN]

Question do clams brown out or change colors like coral when they don't get enough light??

Yes they do. They will loose their intense color. A good Crocea has the best color and pattern. This is certainly not the best I have had but I cannot find a better one I the last 10 years.

 

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Yes they do. They will loose their intense color. A good Crocea has the best color and pattern. This is certainly not the best I have had but I cannot find a better one I the last 10 years.

Thanks good to know, I have one that has lost some Color and I suspect that it needs to be higher in my tank.

 

[OrionN]

 

[vetteguy53081]

Question do clams brown out or change colors like coral when they don't get enough light??

In a sense of speaking, lack of light will result in loss of zooxanthellae which supplies inner sugars for growth and color and yes color will fade and as proper lighting is furnished , so will the color be improved. The inner mantle is generally the first portion to lose color

 

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In a sense of speaking, lack of light will result in loss of zooxanthellae which supplies inner sugars for growth and color and yes color will fade and as proper lighting is furnished , so will the color be improved. The inner mantle is generally the first portion to lose color

Cool thanks for the info, i've had one for about a year and it is just not as colorful as it used to be

 

[PicassoClown04]

As a lot of people have suggested, I also believe that it was the LFS employee yanking the clam off the bottom of the tank. There was no knife or razor blade, it was clearly torn from the bottom. I didn’t see threads tear but it’d been there for about a week which is more than long enough for a clam to firmly attach itself.

I believe my lighting was more than adequate for the clam and my water was fine. There’s some pretty sensitive fish in the tank (pipefish and trimma gobies) and there are other corals like high end zoas (stratosphere, white zombies, etc) that also need pretty high par to look good. The clam is solidly 6” higher than that in the tank and with the tank being so small in the first place, it’s a big difference.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions and thank you OrionN for the gorgeous crocea pics! Maybe I’ll try a crocea in a couple months after I regain some confidence with this tank

 

[MartinM]

I had to cover the light because the blues were washing out the photos. I have an AI Prime HD on about 50% intensity on a 7.5 gallon tank. Clam is around 12” away from the light

That means nothing. We need PAR numbers. A brightly colored maxima needs 350+. Guessing is never a good idea, and with clams, it’s usually fatal over the long run. No one should be in this hobby without a par meter.

in a 7.5 gallon tank, unless you have an alkalinity controller of some kind, it’d likely the clam dropped the alkalinity completely in just a matter of hours.

this is all assuming all parameters were in line.

I have 15 clams for years and haven’t lost any, they really are easy to care for as long as water parameters and light are in order.