Clams - What am I doing wrong?

[GoPitt88]

So I REALLY want a Clam, and have tried twice, but failed both times. What's the secret? First, a little bit about myself: I have a 55 gallon reef that's been up and running for 2 years now. I've had a BTA for about a year now that's doing great. I have coraline on the back glass. When I test my water, I have 0 Phosphates and 0 nitrates. I have Kessil LEDs. Here's a picture of my tank:

Well, the first time I tried, my tank was only 6 months old. I got a Maxima clam from the Divers Den online. I acclimated the little guy and put him in, and he seemed like he was doing good, but after a few days, I woke up to find the shell full of pods, and the shell was almost completely empty!

The second time I tried, I bought another Maxima from the same place, but this time, my tank was 1 year old. Same thing happened. It looked good for a few days, but the next morning, full of pods.

Any words of wisdom for me? I really want to try again, but I don't want to kill another beautiful creature. Thanks [emoji846]

 

[aKlevans]

Maybe try a clam that is a bit easier to keep, like a derasa.
How big were the clams when you got them?

 

[GoPitt88]

Maybe try a clam that is a bit easier to keep, like a derasa.
How big were the clams when you got them?

Between 2-1/2" to 2-3/4"

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Did you feed them any plankton or something similar? Clams don't need a lot of food to survive, but it can help.

You also want to watch out for pests like pyramid snails that eat clams.

 

[GoPitt88]

Did you feed them any plankton or something similar? Clams don't need a lot of food to survive, but it can help.

You also want to watch out for pests like pyramid snails that eat clams.

No, I didn't feed, nor see any pests. Just a lot of pods when it was already too late. Here's a pic of the last one I tried, back in December.

 

[xjiang7]

Any sign of bleach?

 

[GoPitt88]

Any sign of bleach?

Bleach? What do you mean?

 

[GoPitt88]

Bleach? What do you mean?

Oh, from too much light? No. The mantle always looked good from what I could tell.

 

[ksfulk]

Half of the issue is getting a decent specimen. If you can manage that, then finding the optimal place in the tank is the next step. I would try a derasa clam as suggested above. Ive never had much luck with wild maximas surviving at all. Derasas and squamosas are a bit heartier and are meant to sit on the sand bed. They need less light to survive.

If you are set on a maxima, I would suggest looking at @PacificEastAquaculture , as they "specialize" in clams and have a lot of information and success with their aquacultured specimens. Ive been to a few coral swaps were they were in attendance, and the specimens are always more robust than any other clams there.

 

[hart24601]

Generally if they die in a couple of days either they were not doing well before shipment, or suffered in shipment, or something in the tank went after them right away and killed them. Things like too low of light seem to appear after a couple of weeks.

What fish do you have? I have had clam killers that I never saw attack the clam until I recorded it, it never happened when I was watching. Even fish generally thought of as clam safe can go after them. I had a white tail tang and purple tang that picked on clam mantles. The purple also went after LPS if they were green and puffy like brains.

I would also say try a derasa or squammy. I don't want to start any arguments, but I don't think kessils have enough punch for a maxima on the sandbed.

 

[xjiang7]

Oh, from too much light? No. The mantle always looked good from what I could tell.

I had it once when my clam first arrived to my tank. It recovered after I reduce the light. Maybe check something that will attack/irritate your clam in tank. Otherwise it could be the clam itself was damaged

 

[Mustbenuts]

Was the clam attached to the substrate shown in the picture, or did you placed him there? If the clam came with an open byssus (unattached to anything) it's vulnerable to many predatory worms and others living in your tank.

 

[GoPitt88]

Was the clam attached to the substrate shown in the picture, or did you placed him there? If the clam came with an open byssus (unattached to anything) it's vulnerable to many predatory worms and others living in your tank.

It was unattached. I placed him there.

 

[Paul J]

Hi This is were I understand things could go wrong. The underside of the mantle needs a protective shield. Milput / DD construction epoxy could be used - make up enough to cover the lower part of the mantle. Take out the clam and shape the epoxy over the lower half of the clam - (practice this first on a pebble or an old mantle) gentle remove the epoxy and return the clam to your tank - wait until the epoxy hardens - place the clam on to the epoxy shield the same way it came off and the clam should stick its self to the epoxy. Keep the clam off the sand bed for a few days to give the clam time to stick on - This should stop pests getting into the underside of the clam - hope this helps.

 

[Mustbenuts]

Before you buy a clam, make sure it's not coming from Tahiti; these clams have a bad survival rate and most won't last a year. The reason is that these clams are taken from the wild in the Tuamotu island of Reao, they are then shipped 'dry' to Tahiti and this can take 12 to 15 hours as they have to transit in the island of Hao. Once in Tahiti they are put at sea to recover but because of the stress they just had, they of course immediately spawn themselves empty. A few weeks later these clams are then shipped to US dealers, which in turn ship them to the stores, and the stores sell them to their customers. So once the clams are placed into a live reef tank, the first thing they do is try to repair their byssus that was cut in the island and which they took at least 6-7 years to build in the first place. After all that, guess what are the chances for these clams to make it?

 

[Fizzicks]

When I test my water, I have 0 Phosphates and 0 nitrates.

That might be the issue.

 

[Shigshwa]

If I had to compile a list based on the clams that I've had and lost (quite a few):

1. Get a good clam. Typically, wild or maricultured clams are a bigger challenge to keep, since you don't know how they were handled beforehand. I find that ORA clams do much better in a tank.
2. Reducing stress from being added to your tank. Try your best to match the light conditions that the clam was initially in, and place it in a spot where it won't be disturbed by the other inhabitants.
3. Treating PMD early. If you see the first signs of PMD, I would say that it's better to quickly treat it with something like a FW dip versus waiting it out and chancing it becoming too weak to withstand treatments like this.
4. Having some nutrients in the tank. I think it's crucial to have at least some nitrates and phosphates in the tank. To be honest, anything besides fish in a 0 NO3 and PO4 environment is gonna starve, unless you feed and dose heavily to compensate. I would say it's easier to just keep your nutrient levels somewhere above 0.
5. Light. If you run anything that can support Acros, you should be fine. Perhaps spectrum could play a small part for some clams, I wonder if some shallow water clams would benefit from violet that LEDs may be missing out? I've lost Australian Maximas more commonly than other clams, despite having more than adequate PAR, so I'm thinking that they may need some violet, more than deeper water clams.
6. Luck. Sometimes, getting shipped halfway around the world is just too tough on some of them, and they are doomed from the start. If you do everything right and it still dies on you, then you simply had back luck. I've had a nice 6 inch Maxima for a whole month, following every procedure above, having great mantle extension, and it simply gaped for an entire month before quitting on me. It sucks, but you just have to move on and hope that the next one is a good clam.

Basically, the above people have mentioned a lot of these already. I would say that your best bet to having success is to find a LFS that carries aquacultured Derasas. They are hardy, and don't need as much light, which can help you rule out light starvation (unless you're running something completely unsatisfactory, like an incandescent bulb or something). What you can immediately do though, is to find some way to get your nutrient levels up though, something like 5 NO3 and 0.02 PO4.