ack! i think my peppermints ate my maxima

[isz]

up untill i got home from work today i had a 3" maxima. i looked at my tank when i left for work this morning and my clam was in his usual spot like he normally is. but when i returned tonight he was upside down. i could see through the part where his foot is supposed to be. franticly i cleaned up(20 minutes =( i'm a mechanic) now that he's been righted, he hasn't opened at all. i only have 2 peppermints and some snails in this tank. i'm ruling out the snails. could the peppermints have done this? or did he just explode?

 

[jonthefb]

where is his "usual spot" in the rockwork or on a sandbed, plus what type of lightign do you have, and what kind of inhabitants, mainly fish? the reason i ask is because i have a fairly large Coris gaimaird wrasse in my 135 who would knock clams over and turn them upside down hunting for bugs. i wonder if you are having a similar problem. i am pretty sure its not your shrimp.
good luck
jon

 

[isz]

he's usually in the SB, and i have no fish(yet). as for lights i have 90 watts worth of PC's. i even had him in a very low current area. i'm going to test the water in a couple of hours. i'll post the results

 

[bang guy]

I agree with Jon. My guess is the Maxima flipped itself over. It should probably be up on the rocks unless you're acclimating it to your lighting

 

[isz]

=( its been confirmed the maxima has been slain. my roommate confirmed that when he was home earlier he saw the peppermints consuming the remnants of the clam. but i'm still unsure what happened to him. if there are inadequit lights don't clams usually so signs of it as opposed to dying suddenly. as for water quality, wouldn't that also be a gradual thing. i've heard of people having clams go south. but its usually over a couple of days at least. i think

 

[bang guy]

I believe the signs of a Clam going South are very subtle. Not expanding as much, gaping, just slightly out of ordinary. Then seemingly overnight they are gone. I do not believe that Peppermints would harass a healthy Clam.

 

[billkil]

I had a very similar experience with my maxima. By the time I came home from work the foot was gone and it was on his side. I thought it could be the emerald crabs the shrimp or my brittle star. I really wish I knew what happened to it. It was fine for over a month and then gone within a day. I noticed the emerald's picking at the base when I got home, but I don't know if it was already dead. I had also seen the brittle star all over it that morning. Does anyone know if a brittle will eat them? It seems that I have had a couple of mystery deaths and the star is always there. If anyone else has any ideas I would like to hear them. I would love to get another clam but won't because I fear something wil kill it. My water parameters were all normal and I have 2 96 watt pc's in a 60 gallon. Thanks.

 

[brooklyn johnny]

This is a touchy issue that always reminds me of when I was in high school and worked at a fish place. If I had a nickel for every time I heard a person come in and say, "Hey! The pleco you sold me ate my ______(insert prized fish)," I would have... well I'd probably have about 3 bucks but you get the point. The fish died for whatever reason and the pleco was cleaning up. Anyway, this can be applied to the saltwater hobby in a few instances. Hermit crabs killing snails for instance, and whatever killing a clam. While I have heard of emerald crabs picking at the feet of "healthy" clams, I suspect that USUALLY it is what is happening with the pleco. I know from experience, and from reading Daniel Knop's clam book (a good read), that clams sometimes die from the inside out, and when this happens the scavengers have a feast. It's very tough to tell though. The instance I heard of (thus second hand) from a club member was of his emerald crab picking at the feet of his clams. When the clams were put in the sand they were fine and healthy, but the little bast

% was picking at them on the rocks. Don't know if this helps, but relating the pleco story helps a lot in instances like these. The only difference is that a dying fish is easier to notice than a clam or snail. Let us know what happens...

 

[falcon63]

you can not keep shrimp with clams they will eat them

 

[brooklyn johnny]

One more thing... Many people think their clam gets knocked over, yet I would say over 99% of the time it is the clam moving. It is hard to imagine at first, but those little buggers can move when the want to. Sort of like watching Newman from Seinfeld run... hard to believe at first but they can get around. Anybody ever try and catch a flame scallop?

 

[jonthefb]

isz, what size tank do you have the 90 watts of lighting on? This really seems very inadequate unless you had liek a 10 gallon tank. i have 130 watts of PC light on my 20 and can only keep squamosas and derasas. many times if the light is inadequate, the clam will basically bleach, meaning that all of its symbiotic zooxanthellae die, giving the mantle a very pale, almost whitish coloration. This might have been the case, and could have been further lost under the lighitng of your lfs. Just a suggestion
Billkil, i think a similar thing might have happened to your maxima. two 96 watt pcs on a 60 gallon tank is not enough to keep a clam alive. in the wild, giant clams leave as close to the surface of the water as possible (at least with maximas and croceas), sometimes even being exposed to air. This means that they receive an intense amount of light, which they utilize to provide energy. i think that your calm might have never had enough light, and just simply wasted away. Once a clam begins bleaching, it is extremely hard to bring it back.
And finally, Falcon63, i have two peppermint shrimp with my squamosa clam and they never even go near it! im nto sure what you meant by your statement?
good luck all
jon

 

[falcon63]

(jonthefb) the mantle of clams is vulnerable and are unable to sense a shrimp and not know it is being eaten.i say you are lucky i have 2 clams 1 4" squasmosa and 1 7" blue max .to possibly endanger these clams with shrimp i would not recommend keeping shrimp

 

[jonthefb]

IME, shrimp and clams have always been fine together. in my 135 i have about 5 different clams, and 2 cleaner shrimp, i coral banded shrimp, and 2 peppermint shrimp, and have never had a problem. Furthermore, i have no documentation of the types of shrimp that marine aquarists normally keep are predatory on giant clams at all. Peppermint, cleaner, scarlet and coral banded shrimp all feed naturally on ectoparasites removed form fish. and in captivity they are known to eat flake food, frozen food, and copeopods, and other microfaunae. i do not know of any research to show that these 4 most common types of shrimp are predatory to clams. i have also never heard of this happening in an aquarium unless the clam was laready dead, in whcih case, the shrimp are doign their job, by consuming dead and decaying matter. Do you know of any evidence that shows that these guys are predatory on giant clams?
good luck
jon

 

[shadow678]

The only crustacean that I have found to be predatory against clams is the Arrow crab, which I have witnessed myself(evil damned crab ate 3 of my healthy, new clams). I have seen NUMEROUS tanks with clams and shrimp coexisting without any problems. I am leaning towards the clams having already perished and the cleanup crew was simply doing it's job.

 

[falcon63]

i could be wrong. who said that lol

 

[isz]

i've got 90 watts on a 20 gallon. and the mantle wasn't bleached at all when he was open the day before, it was just as vibrant as ever. i tested my water last night, everything was fine
posphate .2
trate 0
trite 0
ammo 0
ph 8.4
the only thing that was a little off was my salinity which was 1.024-1.025
i could see the clam getting knocked over. i have 3 HUGE turbos. but i don't think that a few hours of him not getting light would be a problem.
maybe it was ill with something from the lfs. sigh

 

[bang guy]

I gotta agree with Jon against Cleaners preying upon Clams. I've never heard of it unless the clam was already dying.

 

[jonthefb]

thanks GUY
ISZ you'd be surprised how quickly clams can go south without having light. They utilizte the zooxanthellae in their mantles for energy, and although they do filter feed on microscopic plankton, in areef aquarium, their sole source of energy is these zooxnthellae. im sorry to say but 90 watts of light on a 20 isnt really that much light, much less enought to sustain a maxima. i have a 20 gallon that has 130 watts of light and i can only keep derasa and squamosa clams. unless your clam was placed very high up in your aquarium near the lights, he was probably stressed about energy inthe first place, and then whatever contributed to him being knocked over eventually became the final blow. Being stressed for th elight that was there, adn then to have that little amount taken away altogether could have surely done him in. the reason i speculate like this is because while i was in the process of upgrading my 75 to my 135 i had a maxima clam in a bucket that i had not intended to light, the bucket was heated and SG was monitored, however i totally spaced out light fo rthe clam. he was dead in a matter of hours, but i feel that it was a combo of being stressed cause of the upgrade as well as not havign any light!
sorry to ramble on and on!
good luck
jon

 

[isz]

that's interesting jon. with that said it does make sense. now i'm thinking that because most clams used in reef tanks are equatorial they may have evolved to go only certain durations without light. mainly because during the seasons at the equator the light cycle doesn't change that much.
durned LFS telling me that 90watts was plenty.
if i do choose to get anther clam i think i'm going straight for the T. Gigas =) i have read that of all the clams they need the least light, being that they dwell much deeper than their much smaller brethren. i just hope it doesn't out grow my tank before i can afford a larger one.
am i long winded?

 

[jonthefb]

not at all ISZ! heck if your long winded than i am jsut a friggin chatterbox!! So you are going with the famed "man-eating clam" huh? thats great. in my 4 years as a hobbiest i have never seen a gigas for sale in a lfs. not sure why. but they do grow large and fast from what ive read. Squamosas are my personal fave, i guess cause of their cool shell, but they have some pretty neat mantle patterns for being a supposedly blah clam. Bang Guy has a gorgeous red one that i am gonna steal from him one day. for now ill just haave to settle for my brown and yellow one!
good luck bud, sorry to hear about the bad news from your lfs.
jon