Spawning event

[ReefMon]

Last night my Derasa decided to spawn again. I pulled some samples and looked at them in a microscope and I believe they were eggs, pretty cool, eh?

Well, I ran all the water tests to see if anything was amiss, causing the clam to stress and everything checked out normal. (180 reef, evening pH 8.28, alk 10½ dkh, sg 1.026, temp 81, no3 none detected)

Oh well....


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So, I woke up this morning to a rather strong (make that REALLY strong) stench....


Went down stairs and looked into the dark tank with my flashlight, to see the water was totally white! Looked in the sump, and this is what I had:

Looks like the clam was the beginning of a massive spawning event.....

Did a 35 gal water change, added a poly filter and replaced the carbon, the water looked a good bit better. 4 hours later, the tank looks milky white again, but everything seems to be looking good, the fish are super active (hunting for free food) and the corals look normal, other than just a bit of slime. My skimmer is totally shut down, no foam what so ever, and the tank still smells like ________!

My plan is to keep the temp down in the 78 deg range (normal this time of year is 78-82) to keep the O2 levels up, and to do another 35g water change later tonight plus keep running fresh carbon.

Oh well, time will tell what the outcome will be.

Happy Reefing!
Glenn R

 

[AgentSPS]

Do you have a large rubbermaid or other such container you can place the clam in? You don't want it doing any more nasty in the tank. Continue to do large water changes for the next two days or so as the gametes will begin to die off and decay soon! The skimmer needs to be constantly cleaned as well....The plastic parts are ligned with the crap from the clam and it is making the skimmer not work properly.

HAVE FUN!!

 

[ReefMon]

What happened is the clam spawned, no biggie it's done that quite a few times, but that seemed to have triggered all or some of the corals in the tank to spawn, IE: a mass spawning event.

So far nothing, other than me, seems to be the least disturbed.


Here's a (old) full shot of this tank:

 

[Len]

Anything trigger the spawn that you can guess? I have mass spawns regularly, but it's never during the dead of winter. Of course, my tank is on a seasonal light/temp cycle (Aquacontroller) and this would account for the spawn regularity. But I've also had mass spawns with drastic temperature swings.

 

[ReefMon]

No clue, everything has been stable as a rock (including temp), the only thing I can think of is the clam's spawning set off the rest of the tank, why? I have no clue!

Still looking at milky white water, and thank god everyone still looks healthy.

Glenn R

 

[Lynn]

I think that awesome! Nice tank too! Doesn't that mean that the clam is a happy one??

 

[reefland]

Mass spawnings are annoying, stinks the house up. Sponge filters and water change clears it up in no time. Never had a death from it. If it was to happen when I'm away, I bet I'd have a different story.

Nice looking tank!

 

[Lynn]

Just wondering, cuz I'm thinking of maybe getting one...but how do you prevent this?? doesn't everyone then have this problem? sorry, but I'm kinda clued out when it comes to clam's