I am so exhausted that I just though that my purple tang in the photo above wasn't mine. I was convinced that I didn't have such an awesome fish and that someone had secretly sneaked it into my tank. So yeah, I think its time to go home now.

Catherine your tank is beautiful!!! I sense I am going to have a serious clam addiction in the future. I think I love almost as much as you do...

Yes! Another one to the dark side!

There is something very wrong with my gigas clam. It started on Sunday, and now the problem is much worse. On Sunday the clam had grown to the point that its shell was touching the glass. Just before it was moved you could see on its right side that the mantle had actually come away from the shell on the inside. Its almost like pieces of the shell attached to the mantle flaked off leaving the mantle free from the rest oft he shell.

The clam isn't gaping per say but it is lopsided. Yesterday it wasn't extending its mantle as it has been in the past. I'm not sure what is happening because this is undoubtably nothing like anything I've seen before. I will post a photo or two of this tonight when I get home.

Alright so some cool things about the clam

1) the problem isn't getting worse, I just though it was
2) The mantle still retracts and responds to light.
3) My clam is too big to close its shell anymore and has been for at least 3 years.

So close up
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0037-1.jpg

side shot
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0038-3.jpg

mantle retracted
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0040-3.jpg

mantle extended
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0042-2.jpg

I am in a rush, but as soon as I get to Edmonton I am going to to post this up on Clams Direct as well.

That just doesn't look right, but hard to see the inlet siphon on how stretched it is. I would try loosely tying it up to a more natural opening for awhile. Maybe a weak adductor muscle? I did this on a Crocea a few years back and it made a recovery. Just a thought :)

You can try posting on reefaquariumforum.com which use to be clams direct forum. There should be someone there familiar with what is going on with your clam.


Chris

Its up on RAF.com, and reef central, but I'm still waiting for responses.

I wish I could get you a better photo, but its not actually stretched, its just limp. I had to move the clam (after this started) and its in an area of a little less flow.

Aside from the one gaping hole on that one side, it looks reasonably fine.

Hmmm, good luck! Maybe it's an injury? If you don't mind, please post the links to the threads on raf.com and rc.com, I'd like to follow them to see what gets recommended.

I've heard good things about the suggestion to tie them closed or not-as-open. Apparently the weight of the shells can pull the clams open, but if they need to heal then they need to have the weight of the shells taken off them and that's where the tieing them comes in. I guess even if closed all the way it's not like they suffocate because the shells don't create a perfect seal anyhow. Or so I've heard anyhow - haven't tried this myself.

Alright so the threads;
RAF
http://www.reefaquariumforum.com/gig...ell-t3354.html

RC - My build thread - this is the specific page with the
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...&pagenumber=34

RC - Clam specific thread
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...readid=1481696

I am afraid to tie the clam up because the shell doesn't move. I don't think it can move anymore. How would I go about tying it up?

It doesn't try to close itself shut when you disturb it ? If it doesn't then that does sound like a problem. When I did mine I just gently pulled it to just under the normal width that it would of normally had. I wouldn't close it too much or all the way, don't want to deprive it of getting light/starve.

The mantle retracts when you try to disturb it. The clam is just so big at this point that for a few years now it hasn't been able to close is shell. It still has regular clam type responses to stuff falling on its mantle, passing your hand over the mantle, etc. it just can't close its shell. Make sense?

I know nothing about clams but I hope yours recovers!

Your short bus icon cracks me up!

Well the RAF suggestions were to treat with eurythromycin as a preventative. I am not comfortable treating anything in my system, so I have to set up QT equipment. I JUST packed everything related to QT stuff.

So far this is looking like something nobody, that has seen my posts, have ever seen before. We do however have a red flag; the growth of my clam isn't as fast as other gigas being kept by others.

Running suggestions;
- tie it up - how?
- scrub the shell - need to find a brush
- treat with euro. - where to find this product?

I think I have some Erythromycin....I can check.

Is Tina doing okay? And the crocea/acros? How about a new FTS? :)

Tina is so awesome! I took some photos today, but they aren't so flattering. She is getting along perfectly and eating like a pig. I love her to bits. I have to say, I am attached. She was out about, and social from the moment she was in the tank. You raised an awesome fish. The sixline is also doing well too, but is still nameless.

Clam looks beautiful and all the SPS have their polyps out. The rest of the tangs had a field day with the rock the clam was one. They just had a little feeding frenzy.

I'll post you some nice classy photos (e.g. where I've cleaned the glass) tomorrow!

In the wild they probably get overgrown around them so they don't have to hold their shells when the get bigger.
Just a thought don't know that for sure.:wink:
Hope you figure out what is wrong with it.

You make a very interesting point here. Hmmm.

So time for some very awesome positive news.
1) We are moving in 2 days, and the tank in 4 days!
2) I adopted some more fish, a nameless little sixline, and a very sweet and sociable regal tang named Tina.
3) I got another clam who boasts some beautiful colors and patterns, and I got more SPS too, little colonies, an awesome green cap, and some hitchiker hairy mushrooms.

Thanks Drew for #2 and #3!

Yeah!! Go, Tina! I love that little gimp. *sigh*

Glad to hear everything's doing well.

So the move is about half done, and I am so thankful I will not be moving again. At most we will be moving across the room.

I left on Friday for a charity Roller Derby game in Red Deer and came back yesterday around noon. On Friday Kevin told me that my powderblue didn't make it. I am not going to try to keep this type of fish again unless it is coming from another established home.

Yesterday at noon we started dismantling the tank and transporting it from our condo to our new house. We put all the fish, clams, and corals into the sump, and they have spent the evening there. Today, around noonish, we'll be moving everyone back into the 180g. The logistics of this move were quite the pain. We transported water to the house and put it into garbage cans and the sump. I really hope this works.

The SPS will have been without MH or T5 lighting for about 24 hours, and I do expect some brownout. I'm just antsy to get everything back up and running. The gigas clam is still looking the same. I was really worried when I pulled it out of the 180g at the condo that it would smell like dying flesh. It didn't, and it still looks exactly the same.

The basement is a bit of a disaster. We just kept placing all the fish related equipment on the floor, and its overrun the room. I have some photos to share, but I need to find the proper cord for the camera first.

I hated moving my aquarium six feet to the left....I can't imagine how difficult it would be to move it to another completely separate location!

Good luck. Sorry about the PBT :(

The basement reeks like tank unfortunately. I can't wait for the water to be flowing properly again. With the next big system we will definitely be venting the room separately. I hate the smell of tanks, but love how they look. I just don't think I can handle the smell from a big tank.

Tina looked good this morning, happy, if not a little cramped. The naso, vlamingi, and sailfin, all jumped into a different sump compartment together.

I hope the Powder Blue will be the only casualty. Good luck with the move.

Today I really hate this hobby.

On Tuesdays I make a round trip to Edmonton. I left at 2:30pm and everything looked fine. The fish are still in a holding tank at this point. I arrived back at about 12:30am and went downstairs to check on the fish. The water was 65! Two of the heaters in that tank crapped out at the same time. A third heater was tossed in and as of this morning at 6am it was back up to 72.

I saw most of the fish this morning swimming around. I think the clams had a spawning event as well because the water is cloudy this morning. I am really hoping that is all it is. I was really wanting to stay home to deal with it, but my job is on the line, these are the last few days on my current project and they will decide if I go elsewhere, or stay in my current position.

I have come to the point where I almost want to toss in the towel. I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping two heaters in the tank. I was always worried that one would be stuck on and it would bake my system. Clearly switching to two heaters is not the best of options either. Looks like I will be going to 3 heaters now.

Wow, now I know where my bad luck went. Sorry to have passed it on to you. :cry:

Yikes, that's horrendous. Good luck sorting it out. If you have a new heater in there, it may just be better to let it be and warm up slowly anyhow, I'm not sure what more you can do in the meantime. A quick temp swing back upwards may be just as bad overall as the temperature dip. If there is a silver lining, "too cold" usually is less deadly than "too hot." :neutral:

Good luck. :( Man I feel so terrible for you..

Wow thats brutal. I always thought the two heaters thing was bulletproof, I guess that theory is down the tubes.

I'm of a mind that 65 is better than 95, I'm sure everyone will come out of it okay :biggrin:

Well at about 3:30 I should know how it all went down today. Kevin gets home 2 hours before I do, and he is going to start transfering everything back into the display, provided everything looks okay.

I'm looking at nice photos, ToTM, the Show Me Your _____ ones, and a few others to keep me positive.

You are right though, colder seems to be better then hotter. The only fish I didn't see this morning were the chromii, the purple tang and the scopas tang. I saw everyone else briefly. I am holding out a lot of hope for my clams and corals. Starting over last time was devistating enough, I'm not sure if I can deal with doing it again.

In the very least when everything goes back into the 180g there will be more water volume, and better flow. We ended up having to cut off the bulkheads from the overflow to get it down our stairs in the new house.

Any tank we build will definitely have to be build on site!

Alright so everything is back in the 180g, there have been 3 casualties. They were the pocci colony, the neon green one ( :( ), and a frag from Snappy/Coral Master. All the fish made it, and I attribute it to the temp going down, not up.

The fish also seem to have lost some of their mass, so I am kind of pleased I overfeed, because everyone is looking quite a bit skinnier now.

There has been, what I can guess, is browning out of the SPS. It was expected, and I am now taking steps to slowly acclimate everything back to my usual lighting regimen.

Two clams don't look super fantastic, one being the gigas. The gigas however did not smell at all when I pulled it out of the holding tank. I am now in a better position to get better photos. The second clam that doesn't look so great is placed a bit funny. It used to be placed straight up, and now its at more of an angle. I will fix it tomorrow morning and see if that helps things out.

So overall it was very stressful, especially the part with the heaters. We figured out that one of the heaters just stopped working, failed in the off position. The second one failed with the light on, but the heating element not working at all.

Oh no! Guys Im sorry. Dieing for an update. How is everything doing?

More casualties this morning I hear. I didn't have time to look myself, not that I really want to see any death & destruction. Per Kevin my favorite deliciate cream colony with blue/purple tips is gone.

Once the tank stabilizes out I will put up a post to see who got duplicates from Red Coral. I really want frags of all of these back.

Tonight there will be a big WC, and we'll pick up more carbon, and continue to run that 24/7. I think its the temperature that has done in the SPS. I also worry that the temperature may have also done in some of my biological filter. Tomorrow I will pick up a couple of pieces of LR to put in the tank just in case.

When I had die off in my little 28g long it was because the biological filter got killed off or maimed in some way that it couldn't come back.

So the plan;
1) WC
2) Run more carbon
3) Add more live rock to system
4) Get new plumbing to replace the stuff that had to be torn off
5) Overskim like crazy
6) Fatten up the fish
7) Don't panic

Aww sucks to hear that. I had hoped you would escape unscathed :neutral:

I think you should move #7 to #1 :wink:

Good luck. Sorry to hear about the corals but hopefully you can find pieces of them, or others that are as nice (or nicer) down the road when things stabilize. Hopefully things can start bouncing back up from here on.

If you're concerned about your biofilter I might consider looking into a bacterial supplement. I know Zeovit for example has a bacterial product (not the regular probiotic treatment) for this sort of thing. I'll see if I can find an URL for what I'm talking about.

Can't find what I'm looking for. At one point it was on J&L's site but isn't anymore. I had spied it at Wai's about 6 months ago too. A clear plastic bottle made by KZ and was some kind of bacterial infusion for cycle-starting a new tank sort of thing. Was nothing to do with the typical Zeovit daily additions stuff.

Anyhow thought this might be a more direct approach than just a new rock but since I can't find it anymore maybe it's not worth the goose chase. Although there are other similar products from other brands out there..

Whatever you decide is best though, good luck, hope things come back quickly..

if you want some good stuff its called HAGEN CYCLE it has worked great for me ................. I would use about 2x 500ml bottles to over load the tank with bactical and you can't over dose..

I've used that stuff too before. Seems to work ...

I have very limited time tonight, but I will see if I can't send Kevin out on an additional errand. All the SPS that secumbed or had any problems were light coloured pieces, just an observation, but interesting none the less.

I have moved #7 to #1. There is no point in freaking out about anything because really I'm doing all I can do right now, and its a waiting game at this point.

I dug out another heater from my box of misc. supplies. I was really hoping to put that heater in my 10g project, but the 180g has a more pressing need. I also took the two 'bad' heaters and had some time in the alley with them, they got to know the sole of my shoe really well. Cathartic release is good....

This tank is a total write-off, most everything is dead or dying. Fish, clams, SPS, everything. I now need to decide what to do here. This is the third time I will have gone though a total loss, and I can't handle this.

Kevin and I are going to sit down and make some choices.

Catherine, can I hold anything for you?