Gaping and snails?
 

I have a crocea clam that I have had in my 125 gal tank for about a month now. I have a 10K and 20K 400 watt halides directly over the clam at a depth of about 20 inches of water and 6 inches above the water.
The water pars are good, zero nitrates last checked, weekly water changes for a month or so and every two to three before that. The tank has been up since October of last year. I do have a little trouble keeping the alk and Ca inline. They tend to go low a little.
I do not yet have a skimmer in the system. Circulation is provided by a little giant 5. (I will be upgrading to a sequence 5800 running the new Becket skimmer and providing circulation.)
The tank temp runs 80 in the day and at night and then drops early morning to 78 before the lights come on.
Since my tank was bought used with 120 lb of live rock I have had a problem with phosphate. I read 0.03. I have been running PhosBan: "Julian Sprung's Marine Aquarium Formula" by Two Little Fishies. With this and water changes I have nearly completely eliminated hair alga. I also run carbon.

The clam has been looking this way for several weeks. It is attached to rock that is buried in the sand. I pulled it out about two weeks ago to check for snails. I was careful not to pull it off the rock. I did not set the clam directly upright as you can see.
Last night I found the second snail crawling on the sand near the clam. It had been close to a month since I found the last one that looks like this one.
Any thoughts? Your advice is appreciated!
PS I will begin to feed phyto algae on Wednesday.

The snail found. I have him in a container in the sump awaiting sentence.

Another of the snail.

This area on the clam is thin. Is this ok?

No replies?
How about the snail? Good, bad, or ...?

Try asking Dr.Ron, maybe he can tell if the snail is good or bad.

Peppermint snail. Not bad, IMO. I never had them in a tank with clams though. They never touched my other snails though.
From my experience, those snails are exactly like nassarius snails and eat dead animals and meaty stuff. Maybe they just sense that your clam is on its way out?

Thanks guys,
Someone else offline told me that they were peppermint snails. Anthony said that they were not bad but to keep an eye on them.
The clam seems to be doing ok. I am feeding the tank now so hopefully things should improve.

From the pics, I can't really see anything I'd worry about as far as gaping. The clam looks hapily extended out. You sure this isn't normal? do you/ have you had other clams in the tank to compare?

from what I can see, this just looks like the byssal gland is thin or unattached. I'd start to worry if the clam doesn't fully extend its mantle, then there's something it's unhappy about. Check and make sure there arn't any small round holes in the shell from bristleworms. I can't think of much else.

ps. how long did you run the PhosBan/how often did you change it before it brought down your phosphates? (I have some hair algae too, that just won't die...)

"I glue animals to rocks"
-Sloth

I laughed my head off for a few minutes when I read that one

Tank slave,
I have run the phosban for oh, several weeks. I just put it in and leave it. It says that it is never released again. I have used 1 and 1/2 cans. At my lfs the can is $18. I think that this helped but not completely. I started doing waters changes weekly, 10%. This helped and I have had nothing in the tank till the clam, so I have not been feeding. I think this makes a difference to cut it down in the process. Like I said, I don't have a skimmer.
Oh, there are some phospate removers that are to be used with a skimmer. I have heard that these work well.
No, this was my first clam. I am just watching for now. I bought a second crocea.
Thanks for all the comments.