Finally treated for pinching!

[saltywater180]

My Deresa was pinching for about 8 months. I was so scared about the fw dip, but I finally did it and it has about 3/8"inch new growth in the last 3 weeks alone!!! I'm so glad RC is here!!! I love this place!!

[Julio]

when did you treat it?

[saltywater180]

About 4 weeks ago. It got real mad to!

[Julio]

I bet he did

[UnderwaterExotic]

exactly what does pinching mean in a clam?

[Julio]

is a disease, pinched mantles, it affects the openning of thier mantles and if not treated will cause them harm and they will die from it.

[UnderwaterExotic]

what is it from and do you have pics of what it looks like?

[Johnsteph10]

See, I disagree about "pinching" being a disease, per se. It is simply a symptom of some underlying problem whether it be lighting, flow, pyrimellid snails, nipping, etc.

Likely something was harassing/parasitizing the clam and the FW dip either killed or by removing the clam, you changed the env. in which the clam was in (ie: something quit bothering it, etc..)

hth,
John

[Julio]

Any organism that is affected by a germ or parasite is sceintifically defined as being diseased whihc is why i said that.

[MiddletonMark]

I agree with you John ... at least until it's conclusively shown that pinching is a `disease'. But as this is reef tanks we're talking about ... we'll be arguing this forever :)

[greenfroggiespawn]

any pics??

im still learning bout my clam its a derasa and opens up daily , moves daily, and reacts to light like everything..

but just curious as i wanan monitor its health. a fungia coral is near by and im gonna move the fungia over to the middle..

[dominic]

how long did you dip it?

[Vili_Shark]

Pinched Mantle is not a disease , it is a symptom.

There is something causing it, which we dont know about ,
FW dips can help, sometimes, but sometimes they're not, and that's why the partial suceess.
What causing the pinched mantle can be various problems, bacteria, parasite, virus, etc.

We know so little about clams, we know actually nothing about clam diseases, it's not like fish that we know we have to treat this with copper and that with formalin-malachite.

With clams, we're actually just doing experiment as basiclly we know nothing much and there's nowhere to get more info.

If you read the Clam Bible=Knop book, you'll find out it's quite a basic book.

[zoo d'etat]

3/8" in 3 weeks? thats amaxing

[jamal-188]

I thought pinched mantle was a disease at first. I had a maxima for 10months with no problems until I place 2 new clams in my tank. Within a week all 3 were pinching. FW dips didn't help at all. I finally decided to remove my Bicolor blenny and the pinched mantle problem went away leading me to belive he was nipping at them.

[frink]

While there may be many causes of retracted mantles on clams pinched mantle disease is different. Several years back many advanced hobbyists lost all of their clams to this disease, some of these clams had been in residence for years. The first symptom is pinching of the mantle. Whatever the cause, this disease spreads rapidly through entire clam population in the tank. Many cures were tried until the freshwater dip was happened upon which is the only working cure for this disease. The disease must be recognized in it`s early stages, preferably before the clam stops responding to a hand over the mantle. All clams in the system must be treated to prevent reinfection.

[dominic]

can someone answer how LONG TO DIP THEM ? thanks

[jamal-188]

Originally posted by dominic
can someone answer how LONG TO DIP THEM ? thanks

If I remember correctly 30mins is the max, I dipped mine for about 25-27 a few months ago when I was trying to solve my problem.

[Hypertek99]

so i just stick them in a bowl of regular water for 25mins??? Can i use just tap water??? Will it hurt the clam???

[jbanks]

I believe that the PH and temperature should be equal to your tank so that you do not shock the clam any more than necessary. Just as an fyi, tap water should never be used for Reef- Ro/di water is best unless you have some distilled water laying around.