Clam spawn

[Delphinus]

Ugh. Going to be a longgg night. Came downstairs to feed fish and found a white tank. My paisley/teardrop maxima was spawning (still is, dang they go for a long time - 2 hours - hope it stops soon).

Water change ... new carbon ... skimmer set to ultra wet .. new filter sock ... and scooping out the gunk as it accumulates (imagine a fried egg being blended and then poured into your tank).

2 hours in the water is noticeably clearer but has a long way to go. I just wish the clam would .. um ... stop. I actually considered removing the clam at one point.

At least now I know for sure it was clam spawn that happened this time last year. What has me on pins and needles is that I lost 4 fish in last year's spawn event. So far no signs of distress and man I'm hoping for the best.

[lobsterboy]

can you take some pictures of this action ?

or is it just like wayne shang's ?

[Delphinus]

I thought about it but went into full damage-control mode just on account of that last year's event was a little devastating. The lights are off now so there's not much to take a picture of. Sorry!

Initially the turbidity was so bad you could not see rock 4" away from the glass. The clam itself sort of squeezes itself and out shoots a white cloud from the exhalant siphon. Looks exactly like Coral Snow being shot out of a syringe.

[lobsterboy]

did you ever try collecting a small sample and try to settle it ?

[Rbacchiega]

hmmmm wonder if you could make clam baby juice as expensive as cow baby juice. My uncle in Italy has a farm and he sells bull spunk for 1,000 a shot almost

[Lance]

Bummer! :sad:
Not really something to look forward to every year is it Tony? Although you can take consolation in the fact that you're making your clams happy.
Good luck and I hope everything works out ok.

[christyf5]

I hope things are looking better this morning Tony. The idea of a clam spawn sounded neat at first but after you mentioned issues last year, I hope everyone made it through unscathed.

[lastlight]

Waiting for the good news. Hope the cleanup was a success.

[Myka]

Ugh!!!

Waiting for the good news. Hope the cleanup was a success.

Me too! Go Tony go!!

[Delphinus]

Looks like everyone made it through the night, the water is starting to clear. Breathing a huge sigh of relief but still kicking off a water change this morning as the water has a oily consistency to it and the skimmer is having a little trouble producing foam.

In all fairness last year's spawning was the first spawning I ever lost fish to. I'm guessing it was an O2 depletion issue or maybe the oily consistency coated their gills and they had trouble breathing. Either way it seems like water changes and lots of carbon and the earlier the better seems to be helpful in clearing the hurdle.

[christyf5]

Whew!! So glad to hear that Tony!! :mrgreen:

[Lance]

Good news Tony!
If I were you I'd make sure I don't go on vacation this time of year. Either that or take your clams with you. :biggrin:

[lastlight]

Great news man.

Are all your clams making the transfer over to the big one?

[globaldesigns]

Tony, is it that bad for the tank? Reason I ask, one of my clams has shot itself a few times in my tank, and I just let it... My tank has never been so clowdy by the sounds of yours, but I was wondering, do I need to be more careful with them?

[Delphinus]

I think it depends on the size of the spawn. Before last year I had had a handful of clam spawns and it was never anything significant as far as the tank was concerned. My urchins and snails spawn all the time without incident too, it just gets skimmed out.

Last year's event was HUGE, this one too was pretty bad. I never did see it as a spawn last year, I just found a white smelly tank with a white snotty goo covering the sump. The fish were pretty distressed, I watched my raccoon butterfly lie down and die, I found my flame hawk dead on the perch he was sitting, I never did find my sixline, and the rabbit died 2 days later, although that could have been coincidence but I'll never really know. I never really did know what happened so it was always at the back of my mind, what could it have been that killed those 4 fish, without fixing something it sat as a risk to reoccur.

So when it happened again this year, I assumed the worst. But this time I saw the clam spawning and the evidence left behind was exactly the same. So now I at least finally have some closure on what it was last year.

Fish were going nuts trying to eat the goo last night. (Ew. Whatever floats your boat I guess!)

I would say it's not great for the tank but I think the difficulty here is that not only do I have a few clams (well last year I had like 14 at the time!!), some of them are large (the paisley maxima is the second largest clam in there and is pretty big for a maxima at 7" or 8") but the problem is I think if one of them goes, it can cause a cascade and the others might join in. With big bertha (my football sized squamosa) in there too, if that one were to start I think it would be nearly disastrous for the size of tank that it's in.

I don't think you can really do anything to avoid it though. If it's going to happen it's going to happen ... just be prepared to deal with it quickly. Last year was one of those things that it could have happened several hours before I had noticed it - you know the story, long day at work, swimming lessons, sports or this that the other blah blah blah oh right it's time to feed the fish OH MY WHAT'S THIS.

There's something to be said about not having your main display off in a forgotten corner of the basement!!

[Zoaelite]

Tony have you ever thought of trying to raise the spawn, or have you ever been lucky enough to find little baby clams appearing in your tank?

[globaldesigns]

Thanks for the info Tony, I never thought of it... As my clams mature/grow I will have to keep this in mind.