Does my clam look o.k. to you ??

[Hugo’s_Reef]

i bought this clam at reef-a-palooza from clam mania. i beleive its a maxima i might be wrong .i have it in a 50g cube 24" tall with sump/refugium,radion xr30 pro , and tank is about a year old . i keep my param's at 420 CA -9 Alk-1400 Mag -5.0 nitrate- and undetectable phos according to hanna checker .

So my clam was doing really well the first week or two . I saw him extending his mantle pretty wide. after looking at healthy clam pictures online i thought mine was extending them a little more than normal.Since i have a hard time keeping my dang hands out of my tank i moved my clam all the way to the top along with a piece of sps coral i had also purchased at the show .

then a day later i decided to change my radions (big mistake )from the radiance graph to the high growth graph.

even though i kept my radions at 50% i think all that extra white light was the reason my sps bleached within the day and my clam started not doing so well.

so here he is now a week later i would like any input whether you guys think he will be ok and what else i should do thanks...

 

[Hugo’s_Reef]

 

[Hugo’s_Reef]

 

[Hugo’s_Reef]

He keeps extending his foot and attaching his threads to the frag plugs I put underneath him ...by the way I set my radio on high growth with 6 week acclimation started at 15% and will max out at 50%

 

[Tahoe61]

Nope, does not look good. Clam should be in the upright position, anchored via byssal filaments. The mantle looks withdrawn and pinched. From the images it looks like clam is too shaded. Smaller clams are hard. Lighting with clams under LED's can be a challenge, I still have not mastered it.

 

[Hugo’s_Reef]

Yeah I kinda figured he's not doing good :/ .... The only thing that is giving me hope is that within the last 2 days he has attached two or three new byssal filament to the frag plugs .

 

[chaoha]

I agree with Tahoe61 should be upright. They need strong light on the mantle. I've got mine on the sand bed upright up Kessil A360 we and its doing great. I've had it for about 3 months

 

[Tahoe61]

Yeah I kinda figured he's not doing good :/ .... The only thing that is giving me hope is that within the last 2 days he has attached two or three new byssal filament to the frag plugs .

At this point it's not going to hurt to set the clam upright.

 

[Hugo’s_Reef]

I stood him up a few times and put some old credit cards to keeps him up.. He kept pushing away with his foot until he finally flip one of the cards over and laid on his side .i took the cards out and he hasn't pushed away since .i thought maybe it was to much direct light from the led ???

 

[Hugo’s_Reef]

Are new byssal thread a signs of a healthy clam or healthy enough to make a comeback??

 

[Tahoe61]

Mantle has to be fully extend and clam in the upright position, anything else is a bad sign.

 

[Hugo’s_Reef]

So i tried to stand him up as you suggested yesterday and getting home from work today I see he flipped himself on his side again and has new byssal threads but this time he's facing the back of the tank .i guess he didn't want me to look at home anymore haha

 

[Pfisherman]

The worst thing for a clam is to keep messing with it. That guy looks like a goner to me, my advise is to wait a while before adding a clam. That tank looks pretty new and quite a hefty bioload with all those chromis the anthias aand clown. I have killed a couple of clams so i know what they need to die.

 

[Hugo’s_Reef]

 

[Hugo’s_Reef]

heres a time lapse video of today check out the end ..the clam finally gets up there might be hope haha

 

[Hugo’s_Reef]

well the tank is about a year old maybe a little more .I do agree with a heavy bioload , i have been battling nitrates for a while but thanks to vodka dosing have successfully brought them down and kept them a 5.0.I might have some nice healthy fish for sale soon :/

 

[steelheader.262]

Jackpot!!!

Good luck, hopefully it stays upright.

 

[4FordFamily]

Smaller clams are borderline impossible for all but the most experienced clam keepers.

I had two clams, one blue maxima and a Derasa clam I believe but they were 6 and 10" respectively. I had them under reef brite LED's (2X 60" 50/50 strips and an actinic strip) and they thrived for two years until I trusted my old nitrate test kit that read 20 PPM even after months (even a year at one point) of no water changes and a less than stellar skimmer.

Anyway, by the time I noticed the problem, they were too far gone. Lost them both within 30 days and nitrates turned out to be close to 150 PPM. No no no good.

I tried two more blue maxima in that size range -- only to have one of them nearly DOA and the other act much as yours has. This is after nitrates were under 40 PPM. I will try again at some point, I REALLY enjoyed having them. Beautiful creatures.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Clam babies are very touchy. Especially maximas. They absolutely hate being bothered and need lots of light. They also need lots of food. Meaning, you need to stir your sand bed every day or so to make it cloudy. This helps the clam get what it needs. Once a baby will not stay upright or is moved around a lot, it is not a good sign. I have a baby maxima right now that keeps moving itself, so I worry every day. I have raised a few and they are tough buggers to get growing. Derasa and Squamosa are a better choice except they get huge!

I raise my clams under MH and T5, never tried LEDs.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Live and learn, that is all we can do. Small clams are nearly impossible to keep alive.