So I got a maxima clam recently and I think I set it up for its doom now that I look back at it.

When I bought it the foot was attached to a piece of rock and the shop had it set in the sand bed. When I got home I moved it to the top of my tank and figured sine it was attached to the piece of rock it would be OK.

Everything was fine for a few days and last night the clam looked great, even took a few pictures of it because it was looking so good.

This morning I got up and noticed my cleaner shrimp was elbow deep in the shell and the clam was almost sunken in looking. I looked closer and noticed that there were two hermits under the shell. I picked up the clam and noticed that the foot was severed from the piece of rock...not a clean cut but more like it was torn away.

Now the clam is still alive as I touched the mantle gently to see if it moved and it did but I'm 99.9% sure it won't make it now.

My guess is that by moving it up there I exposed the foot and the hermit went to work on it last night.

So here are my questions:

1. What do you think happened to it?

2. Should I remove the clam even though its not dead or let it be and see what happens?

Crap I'm bummed out.

Parameters?

What's the lighting/placement of the clam in the LFS and in your tank?

I thought Florida burned down/

Salinity 1.025
Calcium 420
PH 8.2
Alk 12
Nitrite/Ammonia 0
Nitrate 5
Temp 79

The store I got it from had it under a 250W 14K metal halide in a 36X36 tank with an 18" height and the light was about 12" off of the water. They had it in the sand bed on a piece of rock. I have a 150W metal halide in my tank with a 14K bulb (29 gallon biocube). I started off with the clam in my sand bed then moved it up to the rock work after several days.

The clam is still alive which actually sucks because I know it doesn't have a chance in hell of making it. The cleaner shrimp went up to it in the past 5 minutes and it closed up on him. With that hole in it I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it.

Here are two pictures, please keep in mind that these pictures were taken within less than 12 hours of each other. The first picture is from last night. The second and third pictures are from this morning. You can see the hole all the way through the clam.

hate to break it to you, but that is really bad. i cant tell what happened, could have been big ph swing. had a crocea do same thing for no apparent reason. there has been a clam disease going around too that hits like that som maybe that too.

Yeah I don't have munch hope for it but its still alive. I'm not going to pull it out until it stops closing up when I go to the tank.

my clam sometimes does that and then returns to normal the next day and looks beter than ever.

looks like it's gaping. google "clam gaping" there is lots of info out there on it.

more than that im worried about the HUGE siphon hole and the shrunken insides.

Yet another reason why I don't and never will keep a single crab in my tank. Shrimp are not as evil, but they're a close 2nd in terms of nuisance to LPS and clams. Crabs can't be trusted, specially as they become large, imho.

They do not eat clams though.

No they dont, but they will attack and/or irritate tank mates if the opportunity presents itself. This applies specially to large crabs. I find their behavior to be unpredictable, so I don't bother with them.

i agree but not as much with hermits, sally litefoots and others hell yea!!! I think shrimp's are sneaky bastards and do alot of damage if presented the opportunity, I think no shrimp is fully reef safe.

I'll never trust a crab or Coral Banded Shrimp ever!!!!
Dang CB shrimp was trying ot eat a puffer twice it's size.
I think there are only are very few shrimp that can be trusted....

Well the clean up crew I have is very efficient, the clam shell is 100% cleaned out as of this morning. I really wish I knew what had happened.

how big was the clam jw? Clams can be pretty touchy kinda had the same thing happened then later found out that a) my alk was too high (added supplements apparently too much) and my phosphates were really high as well. clam lasted like a week.

Have you checked your tank for whelks? they'll do a number on clams.

Yeah looked all over it for months now. I'm actually kind of anal about looking at my tank to check all the spots for...well...whatever. I check it both during the day and at night. My tank is loaded with corals including softies and LPS...even one SPS and nothing has been munched on. The hardest part to wrap my head around is the speed at which this happened....less than 12 hours from looking perfect to looking half dead.

Is it still alive? Have you done a fresh water dip on it yet? FW dips help alot of ailments on clams. take RO/DI match tank temp and Ph, then plop the clam in for about 10 minutes. Put back in tank and see how it is. You can repeat this process daily and increase the time if it looks like it is helping. Check out the forum at clamsdirct.com, they have some great folks that can help you out.

Dude, that totally sucks. I can feel you. Well today my clam got attacked by several hermit crabs. I put my clam on the substrate, but somehow the base of the clam was exposed. The hermits ate the clam from there!!!! 1/2 of it is gone. I think my clam is a goner even though it can still respond to light. I HATE HERMIT CRABS!!!!!!

Have you checked it fo pyramidal snails? Pyramidal snails will suck the life out of a clam in no time at all. Hermit crabs usually don't feast on healthy livestock. I doubt that they ripped the byssal gland. Look under the clam for very tiny cone shaped snails about the size of a grain of rice. They are all white. Thehy move around a lot at night. You can see them with a flashlight and mag nifying glass. Sometimes you'll see them under the mantle but most times you can find them under the clam, at the base attached to the foot. I don;t think you did anything to the clam.

I don't believe that the hermits just randomly killed a healthy clam.

+1 Cleaners will go after what's dead or dying.

I've got hermits in with my maxima and no problems. They climb all over his shell and it will close up a little bit, but no harm. I suspect your clam was on its' way out when the hermits took over, JMO.

Yeah I had checked but there were none there. This happened back in August so the clam has been long gone since then.