Any experience with localized bleaching on clam mantle?

[Delphinus]

Noticed a patch of white on my T. squamosa's mantle tonight. Clam is not gaping, in fact looks otherwise basically healthy, and this sort of came out of nowhere.

I read up on Knop's clam book and he says (going to try to paraphrase a bit here), it can happen, it happens quickly, and so long as it doesn't spread and turn into "generalized bleaching" (ie. the whole mantle), the clam can recover in a few weeks. Generalized bleaching, on the other hand, he says is basically fatal.

Soooo .. um. This happen to anyone else?

Knop talks about causes of localized bleaching generally resulting from changed in lighting intensity ... I haven't changed lighting recently so not sure what to think about that. My actinics are about a year old, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to replace those.

[Sushiman]

what about the possibility of a burn? saltcreep falling into tank?

[Delphinus]

Hmmmm. Not impossible I suppose but seems unlikely? It sits in a spot where there's no saltcreep above it.

However ...

It does sit underneath the nori feeding station for my tang. Not sure if that's significant or not.

I'll try to take a picture, thing is as open as ever, just happens to have a spot about finger-sized that's pure white on the mantle.

[christyf5]

I don't know about "localized" bleaching. But my clam used be a uniform dark color with mottled blue striping. In the past 6 months or so, the outer length of the mantle has turned a greyish color with black spots, much like a "gold" maxima. The inner part of the mantle is still the dark with blue. Its actually quite pretty but kind of weird when I look at old photos of it.

[Delphinus]

[Delphinus]

Definitely a bit worried on this one. If this thing goes it will take down the entire tank.

[midgetwaiter]

I saw a little spot like that just come and go in the space of a week on my maxima, I never knew what happened. Hope it goes well for you.

[Delphinus]

Really, one week, wow. Well here's hoping it's nothing worse than that.

Literally this came out of nowhere. I'm noticed this last night and I'm not sure it was even there yesterday morning. It may have been and I'm just not observant, but for sure it wasn't there the day before.

[christyf5]

Wow that is really weird. I hope it goes away as quickly as it arrived.

[Sushiman]

It's definately not a burn, it seems to be in the underlying tissues. What about an infection or fungal episode? Never seen such an event although my experience with clams is very limited. The good thing is the clam otherwise looks very healthy. Perhaps were're overlooking something quite natural?