New hole in my clam

[maroun.c]

Hi got this clam 3-4 months ago. it seems to be doing find open all day.... it had two holes on it which i was told were one for eating and one for excreeting however there is a new hole on hte posterior side of it between where the two shells meet. if you look at it from the anterior you could see right through the 2 holes is this normal i looked at it from behind and it seems as if there is a little bit of erosion and a hole

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v93/maroun.c/Clam/clam_hole.jpg

and here's a pic of it from behind
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v93/maroun.c/Clam/clamholepost.jpg

thanks for any help. also i would appreciate if anyone would tell me what type of clam this is

[Peabody]

That is, well, not exactly normal, but not unheard of. The clam might have ejected his byssal organ (not goot). I have seen clams able to open and close the "hinged slit" (for lack of a better term) past the byssal organ before.

The bigger issue is the clam looks quite unhealthy with a great deal of bleaching. (looks like a maxima, by the way) What kind of lighting is he under and what is your current water chemistry. It looks like he needs help ASAP!

[OrionN]

I agree that this is a maxima that is doing very poorly and is about to kick the bucket. There was not growth for the last several month (one evidence of shell growth) and the mantle looks un healthy. This clam does not have much tissue inside the shell.
The hole you worry about is normal. That is where the clam put his foot through when the go for a walk or when he put his Byssal gland out to form threats to attach himself.
Goodluck with him,
Minh

[maroun.c]

Thanks for the replies. i got this clam a couple of months ago it was a bit whiter than this. it was Id'd here on RC as a giga (most probably) and it looked healthy by then. i see no change in it since i got it (may be it looks a bit darker though)however it was attached to a small rock which got detached from it when my maroon clown decided to push it away from it's territory. (i know it's bad to have it detach from it's attachement) however it occured a couple of weeks after i got it. so you think this is the reason for it looking like this.
as to my water parameters they have always been good ammonia and nitrates always undetectable nitrates max about 5 ph 8.1 - 8.3 calcium 450-470 however all my test kits are expired and there is no way to get good ones around here..... anyway my water conditions look good as most of my corals look good now however i have some problems with GSP and leather corals who seem to slowly fade away and die in my tank.
my tank is 82 G lots of LR sandis full of life
2 weeks ago i added a 45 G refugium. with DSB i have a DSB in my tank too. fitration is with bioballs (will be removing them soon) and a seaclone skimmer and i added a turbofloater 750 to add some filtration. got no DT to feed the clam around here but was told that at this size MH lighting alone would be good. it's under a 20 k MH. also i feed some invertebrate food and coral food (formula 1 and 2 made by marine enterprise) and coral food made by Sera and frozzen microplancton and frozen coral food unfortunately that's all what's available here.
i guess my water quality is acceptable at least and if not it will be as soon as my new refugium kicks in. also the turbofloater is taking out lots of gunk so i guess my water qualityis improving yet no accurate way to emasure it with the bad quality test kits.
anyway could you please indicate what changes should i do to help it? i could take it higher on the rocks to be closer to the halide, do you think it'll make a difference however he'll be on rocks not on sand then.
thanks for all the help

[Peabody]

My two questions are this: What wattage of light and how far above the clam is it?

Second, have you ever measured ALK and are you supplimenting? Your tank (if you have some dying corals and sick clam in particular) may be suffering from a chemical inbalance.

Step one would be to hunt down some new test kits (preferably Salifert....they are in Europe and might be able to help you). Get a current CA/ALK and PH if nothing else.

Best of luck....hope your clam pulls through!! (Oh...before I forget...It has to be a maxima based on the shell...the mantle resembles a gigas, but only because of the bleaching)

[maroun.c]

the MH is 150 W HQI made by arcadia i have on single MH above the tank can't add another one cause mytankis running at 82 degrees with 5 fans working all time. the MH is 27 cm above the tank (around 11 inches) andthe clam is 40 cm deep in the tank (around 16 inches) so the halide is 67 cm (27 inches) high from the clam. i could however put the clam high on the rocks if it'll improve things. i also have glass cover on the tank which i can remove. i'm not supplementing anything for the alk nor am i testing for it however i guess my alkalinity should be in check as when i perform hyposalinity in my Q tank the PH does not fluctuate. unfortunately that is the only indicator i have in the abscenceof test kits. however i do water changes frequently with good quality salts. if i'm not able to get test kits do you think i could harm my tank by supplementing without monitoring to raise the alkalinity a bit?
i'll try to get some test kits howeve i'm in the middle east and no one ships till here. as for hte ID you might be right for i posted pics of the mantle only when it was ID'd as giga. thanks for your help and any suggestions you might have

[StephenS]

Do you have any way of measuring nitrates?

[maroun.c]

well the maximum nitrate level i ever measured was 5 which is too low i never had hair alga problems to suggest high nitrates or phosphates excpept for the lastcouple of months and after some hair alga appeared on a couple of rocks i just added a new 45 g refugium and added to the seaclone i had a new turbofloater 750. also i have a dsb in my tank as well as in te refugium so i guess my results are good.

[Peabody]

Yes, the clam is very far from the lights. SLowly raise him up the rockwork.

I would suspect without ever supplimenting ALK nor ever testing that it is SEVERELY low. Do your best to get an ALK kit as soon as possible so you can get it up to natural seawater levels. I would suspect this could be a cause of your coral problems as well.

[maroun.c]

thanks for the help will start taking him higher slowly and will try to get an alkalinity test kit and then asses my tanks alkalinity and act accordingly

[sandram]

Go to EBAY they have all kinds of tests that you can order. just type in salifert, thats where i got mine.

[unicornis]

yeah i also think that its a gigas

[Peabody]

That's not the shell of a gigas....look at the bysall opening.

[7130]

Originally posted by StephenS
Do you have any way of measuring nitrates? Do you think his nitrates are too low?

[maroun.c]

unfortunately i didn't get the chance to test my improvemnets efficency on the healthof this clam as 2 days ago i woke up to see my urchin eating the clam from behind and the shrimps from the front i believe it was lready dead and they were eating the remains. i removed them from it and took it to a place to hide it's posterior from the attacks and the following day it was dead and it's tissues were floating in the water. i removed everything out and only kept the shell in the tank. funny it gave no smell. it's sad to have it die without being able to do anything for it, what do you think i should improve before trying another one?

[Peabody]

Before trying again, get new test kits, especially ALK and get them in line. Allow the system to be stable at proper levels for a few months and make sure you maintain them.

Then, get a new clam, and make sure it's healthy to start with :)