Two dead clams??

[grimmjohn]

Nice Article

 

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/may...2003/invert.htm

 

"feeding experiments I mentioned earlier tell us that bivalves such as mussels and oysters are generally able to eat food of a pretty wide range of particle sizes (roughly 2 to 500 micrometers), but it is only the really tiny particles (roughly 2 to 20 ìm) that they eat without regard for their taste (Tamburri and Zimmer-Faust 1996). As particles get larger, mussels and oysters appear to be quite good at selecting the tasty bits out of the water column and rejecting the rest. This means that most bivalves tested to date will only eat moderately-sized particles that taste good (primarily invertebrate larvae and small zooplankton such as rotifers), but will eat most tiny particles (primarily phytoplankton) regardless of taste. Thus, any aquarium food for bivalves either has to be sufficiently small (of the approximate size of phytoplankton, in the range of roughly 2 - 20 ìm) that the mussel/clam/oyster will eat it regardless of how it tastes, or it has to taste right for them to eat it. Even for particles that are ingested however, the animals may not be able to digest them and still starve to death if the ingested particles do not provide any appropriate nutritional benefit, such as our plastic bead examples above. "

 

Written for mussels, granted

 

Cheers,

 

John

[BKtomodachi]

Maxima.

 

He's reaching a bit, but not that badly... my best guess would be water parameters of lack thereof.

[knowse]

Originally posted by FAC_WNY

If you're fighting hair algae, your water parameters are NOT good.  The reason you don't have detectable levels of nitrogenous wastes and phosphates is that the algae is consuming it as a fuel source for growth.  Reef organisms do not do well in systems with elevated nutrient levels.  

 

Cheers,  

Fred

 

Fac, it was totally ignored. Most good advise is.

[dhoffroad]

ok so I don't have any clams so no I don't know about them but he said "The first one lasted about two weeks and the second one died under one week" will a clam starve to death in that ammount of time ????? unless the LFS already had it towards the end of its life (starvin it)would it have died that quick......don't sound right to me I think something besides not feeding it was the prob. but like I said I don't know much about clams

[BKtomodachi]

A clam probably would live in the dark without phyto for that long. Thats why its probably water params.

[dhoffroad]

that's what I figured

[Tomaso_Pantera]

Large brislte worms will eat the bare foot on a clam as well as certain snails and crabs it is is exposed an unatatched to a small piece or rock or your reef rock.

[balla816]

did u ever check ur tank for any pyramid snails i know that they can do quite some damage to clams......and if ur lfs had them in their tank it was only a matter of time before they killed the clams

[balla816]

a way u can fix the situation is taking the clam ad turning it upside down and picking out as many as u can and u can also pick up a wrasse cuz they eat them

[sir winston mulligan]

im in no way a clam expert but could this have been caused by not acclimating correctly