Clam Rescue

[MadScientist]

Topic Description: Warning: Do not try this on your tank. Try at someone's elses,

Hi all,

This is a blog of my attempt to rescue a poor clam named "Hermy". Please do let me know your comments and any ideas that you have. Please DO NOT TRY THIS IN YOUR TANK. Enjoy.

I just received a piece of clam for rescue. Actually it was 2 pieces, since the second piece looks much more healthy, so I shall not focus on him.

I have tagged this poor piece of clam with the name "Hermy". She's a very shy when she first arrived. Her mantle did not even protrude out of the shell. Poor fellow, she has a very damaged byssus gland, you can see all the damaged tissues hanging there. Since I do not wish to disturb her, I will try to get a photo of that when she falls by herself. Reaction to light changes where slow and minimal. Inhalant siphon is wide open.

I decided to use stress-induced recovery method on her.

Since I do not have a marine tank at home, I have to pull out my dusty 1ft tank. The tank setup comprises of pre-mix saltwater, air pump and a mini internal filter. Bacteria starter was added to provide some sort of bio filtering. Hermy was thrown in at the same day. I provided a warm white fluorescent to her. Dead phytoplankton, zooplankton, spirulina, fish protein (undigested) was force fed to her. Her reaction was to expel the food, which is natural.

Excess food was introduced to the surrounding to increase the ammonia level.

Lighting was random. 30 mins on. Total light period given for Day 1 was 2 hours.

On Day 2, Hermy seems to be acclimatising. Inhalant siphon became tighter. Her mantle seems to be protruding out slightly more. She is more responsive to light changes. Again, I fed her with the same food as yesterday. This time round, I placed it at the output of the filter. Her response was similar to yesterday, expelling the liquid containing the food, but the expelling seems more forceful today. Seems like she's eating well and is regaining strength, I have a photo of her condition today. This is the link: http://www.mypora.org/ricolaswissherb/publ..._2_24072006.jpg. Please note that the file is arounnd 2.17mb(2178kb) in size.

Stay tuned, Let's pray for Hermy.

[MadScientist]

Hi all,

Unfortunately, the link does not work. I have attached the photo in this post.

Thank you.

[MadScientist]

Hi all,

Day 2 lighting period was 3 hours. Can't keep the lighting on for long periods due to the dramatic temperature change.

Thanks.

[MadScientist]

Hi all,

Today is Day 3. Hermy survived! In fact, she had done even better for today! As usual, I fed her by placing the same food near the output of the filter. Observed her for a while, she only ejected the food when the particle got too large. Can't blame, I got no money to get a high speed blender, Seems like she's begining to accept the food. Finally, 2 new upgrades in my arsenal, a Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium and a white-blue PL lamp! For those who do not know Tropic Marin, it's a very good brand around. So good that it's my official brand and I became sort of a free "ambassador" for them, Since the water is quite new, I pumped in around 18ppm worth of calcium into it. For those who are using calcium supplements, a warning, do not get any of the powder onto your hand! This powder seems to be much "hotter" than other brands when it dissolves away from my hand. Hmm, is it because of the smaller particle size? I do not know. All I know is that it is worth the price when I see it dissolving so rapidly into the water. Shiok arh,

Do you know?: Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium contains more than just calcium? It also contains 70 trace minerals including stronium and iodine! So dun be so stupid to buy additional stronium and iodine supplements! Not unless you have an army of iodine grabbers in your tank. This is not an advertisement from them, hehe.

PS: Dun go around scounting for the lowest price for this brand, I went around and discovered that they control the prices so well till everywhere is exactly the same price, both in retail shops and in farms. It's the ferrari of marine supplements, so don't expect it to be cheap,

Do you also know?: Insufficient or excessive iodine may cause your clam to go into "sudden bleaching" mode? This is because iodine is used by your clams to counter the oxidation effects produced by the huge amount of oxygen produced by the zooxanthellae.

You would also love to know this: Table salt, the salt that you add into your soup, food etc, is actually iodised. Dun believe? Take a teaspoonful of it and heat it with a flame. If you are lucky, you may just see some purple vapour coming from the salt. Dun expect too much of the vapour as the iodine level is very low. The same goes for seaweed, just burn them!!! Hehe. Please do note that heated salt are highly aggressive, this means that they do splatter unexpectly, especially when there's water around. So please do not be so stupid and get too close to the heated salt. And dun be even stupider to add water onto the heated salt. Gently heat the salt, do not use a flame thrower to heat them. Your insurance policies may not cover your stupid acts. You have been warned.

Stuff to fill up your brain: Elementary iodine is highly reactive. It will rapidly react with other elements. Do not be alarmed if your iodine level does not match what you throw into the tank. Elementary iodine is also posionous and will stain clothings. Please do not eat them.

I noticed that there's a crab hidden inside Hermy. Is that her hubby? Hmmm. Well, I know I didn't mention this in my previous posts, the reason is that I do not have concrete evidence. You may have realised I do have them now, If you also have the same situation happening on your clams, do not fear! Cos there's nothing to fear! The crabs and shrimps living inside your clams are not actually harmful. You will harm your clams if you try to forcefully evacuate the creature! Only evacuate them if you are skillful enough and have sufficient reasons to believe that they are actually harming your clams. It is not known how they will benefit the clams.

Hermy was fed twice, once in the morning, another at night. Seems that the water can't get dirty so I increased the quantity of food by a little. Total lighting was 4.5 hrs. It should actually be 4 hrs, but I accidentally overshot, Water temperature shot to 32.1oC from 31.7oC with light on. Much better than yesterday which went up to a shocking 33.2oC when I was using the white fluorescent. Hermy, as usual, is a little sluggish with the light change response. But she's slightly faster today, I believe she realised that I like to play with the lights by switching it on and off, What a lazy clam, dun wanna play wif me.

After so many blackish, boring looking words, now it's time for the colourful pixels,

There you go:

[MadScientist]

Photo 1

Caption: Crab doing the "No shooting please" handsign with his claw.

[MadScientist]

Photo 2

Caption: A crabby shot. The crab finally shows himself! Sorry for the flash below the crab,

[MadScientist]

Photo 3

Caption: Resting crap? Looks like a crap or crab? I dunno,

[MadScientist]

Alternative links:

Photo 1: http://static.flickr.com/63/197195422_968b04714c_b.jpg

Photo 2: http://static.flickr.com/69/197203089_1964d4ac91_b.jpg

Photo 3: http://static.flickr.com/64/197203091_c78ea628c2_b.jpg

Album available at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60905900@N00/

[MadScientist]

Hi all,

Photo 2 shows part of the damaged byssus gland. Look at the extensions, not even attaching to the rock. Poor thing,

What do I intend to do about that? Nothing. I dun wanna hear a clam screaming. Heard that it sounds very terrible,

[gunzo]

I have a clam with recessed mantle right now .. think probably because of stress or low light level (he was flourishing when I had my 4tube T5) .. any help in restoring the clams former flat wide open mantle glory?

[MadScientist]

Hi gunzo,

As long as he has no damaged byssus gland, the risk of secondary infections should be pretty low. You can try shifting the clam closer to the surface of the water to maximize the light intensity.

As you have provided insufficient details, I cannot diagnose your problem further. Please provide me with water parameters, lighting parameters and details of the clam (eg. how long has he been in your tank).

Thank you.