[sevenrider860]

Hello,

I have had 5 Asian Clams in my tank for about 2 months. Within the last week, all the clams have died. I find the white clam body being picked on by the fish and the shell is open and empty at the top of the substrate. I performed a 50% water change when the first three died. After my regular 50% water change today another two died.

Since these clams feed from the water column, I am very concerned about the water quality. All the waters checks show normal and I have Amano shrimp that also seem to be doing fine. I don't have any fish that I would expect to be able to kill the clam. I don't know what killed these clams.

The fish:
Swordtails
Zebra Danios
White Cloud Mountain Minnows
Galaxy Rasbora

Any ideas? Anybody else ever suffer an Asian Clam die off?

Thanks!

Brian

 

[A Hill]

Your water collum is probably too clean for them. They need things to feed on that are in it and changing water doesn't help that at all.

-Andrew

 

[sevenrider860]

Wow...never thought of that! I hope that is the cause. I am not too concerned about the clams. After I added them I read forum posts and had second thoughts. My primary concern was the shrimp and I did not want the dead clams to be the "canary in a cage" warning me of bad things to come.

Thanks!

Brian

 

[spypet]

seven, truth be told, few have any luck keeping clams in their pretine clear water planted tanks with minimal water flow unless they are willing to regularly feed the clams by hand using a medicine dropper and use a powerhead to increase waterflow that may disburse too much Co2 your plants could use in the process. they are also very sensitive to water changes, and the fact that planted tank require regular changes does not help them much. don't feel bad that they died on you, but perhaps you should not buy any more clams to replace them either. my guess would be these clams might thrive in a low tech tank, with thick stemmed plants that don't require Co2 and stay rooted in good waterflow, and where other catfish like bottom feeders stir up all the food, plant debris, and mulm buried just below the substrate surface, and make it way into the clams filtering mouth.

 

[A Hill]

seven, truth be told, few have any luck keeping clams in their pretine clear water planted tanks with minimal water flow unless they are willing to regularly feed the clams by hand using a medicine dropper and use a powerhead to increase waterflow that may disburse too much Co2 your plants could use in the process. they are also very sensitive to water changes, and the fact that planted tank require regular changes does not help them much. don't feel bad that they died on you, but perhaps you should not buy any more clams to replace them either. my guess would be these clams might thrive in a low tech tank, with thick stemmed plants that don't require Co2 and stay rooted in good waterflow, and where other catfish like bottom feeders stir up all the food, plant debris, and mulm buried just below the substrate surface, and make it way into the clams filtering mouth.

Yeah, thats how they are being kept in my LFS's tank and I'll be getting a few to make sure I don't get any GW when I do a bunch of tank changes...

So If they die on you that means your tank is nice and clean! And that you should probably stay away from all filter feeders:icon_sad:

-Andrew