New clam intro after disease wipeout

[mia1974]

I need some opinions on whether or not you guys think my tank is in the clear or not. I lost 4 maximas, 2 squamosa's and 1 derasa to the Phonepei clam disease aout 5 months ago. I have 2 remaining derasas, 1 which grows like wildfire, the other which must have had some massive internal damage due to the disease and hasn't grown at all since the "episode". They appear symptom free at present and have been this way for months. (at the height of the disease all clams appeared to have the symptoms). I did bathe them all in an antibiotic, only to have the 2 derasas survive.

I waited all this time to not add any clams, until over a week ago (9 days) when I added a small gold maxima. The maxima is doing great and is asymptomatic. How long do you think it will take until I can be confident that my tank is disease-free? I forget how long it took for the clams to contract symptoms (I know death occurs rapidly -within a week- after that point)
Thanx for any input you may have :)

[holeinone1972]

In my opinion, I would wait a minimum of a month, before thinking success. 2 months, would be all the better.

Rob

[npaden]

mia,

I lost 12 clams (maximas, croceas & squamosas) to the phonepei thing in May. I had 1 derasa survive.

The derasa is just now beginning to grow again - it looked real bad for more than a month and since has seemed to be regaining strength and is now growing again. There is going to be a distinct line where this occured on the shell as the regrowth started from within and there will be a ridge as a result.

I recieved another derasa from a fellow hobbyist just over a month ago and it seems to be doing well. I added 3 maximas that I purchased at MACNA and they also seem to be doing well. I think this time I'm going to stock up all at once on clams and then not buy anymore to risk introducing anything that could hurt them, so I'm looking at getting 10 more maximas sometime within the next month or so.

FWIW, Nathan