Derasa Clam is dying please help.

Ok so we have had our clam for about 3 months. The other day he started acting funny. We would come in in the morning to turn on the lights and he would be open. His mantle is pulling away from his shell and his mouth is splitting larger.

Water params are not great but he has been living in them for 3 months without a problem. They might not be great but they are constant LOL.

Params as of now:

Ph 8.0
Gh: 180
Kh: 120
No2: 0
No3: 40

we use strip tests which I know are not the best, but we some how always manage to mess up the other tests.

I will get some pics of him and post them asap.

In the mean time, does anyone have any ideas about what's going on?

 

do you feed it?

 

we add phytoplankton to the tank but we don't spot feed it. Should we?

 

Here is what he looks like now...

 

How big is it? How old is the tank? Lighting? Calcium levels? MG levels?

 

clams are filter feeders so spot feeding isnt needed. why gh and kh and not dKH? why is your no3 40? what is your Ca, Mg, dKH, PO4, NH3? what lights? and how far from the lights? test strips are useless in a reef tank, salifert makes good easy to use tests.

 

It's about 3 inches long, lighting is metal halides, we just changed the bulbs last week. Not sure about Mg, we don't have a test for that and I thought that Kh reflected calcium, guess I was wrong.

 

we don't really have a reef tank. we have rocks and fish lol, we just prefer small fish so we try to keep everything reef safe. We haven't heard heard of the other tests before. Ok so we need to switch to a different testing system. How often do you guys test?

 

if you have rocks,sand,clam then you have reef, welcome to world of money

 

ok so I just looked at the prices on those tests, are there any cheaper? We can't afford those any time soon.