Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ack!!! so this morning, i checked up on my baby RES. well, he was sittin on the bottom of the tank with his eyes closed. that was weird, cuz he always has his eyes open. then i noticed he had one webbed foot on one of my freshwater clams (i have like. . 20 or so freshwater clams living in the gravel. . they re just regular freshwater clams, around an inch long) and i offered him some food, but it was so weird cuz he didn t react. he just sat there . .usually he gets excited and starts swimming up rapidly. then he DID try to swim, but part of his feet was trapped inside the clam!!!! cuz the clams, they open up to feed, but if u touch them the slightest bit, they close up immediately. i guess my turtle was resting his foot on the open clam, but when he tried to swim away, it shut close, trapping his foot inside. i took both the turtle and clam out, becasue the turtle couldn t swim up to breathe for air. it was trapped tight. . .i could NOT just pull off the clam cuz it was so tight, the turtle's claw would have ripped of for sure. so i lay the turtle clam down on the backyard patio and i got a hammmer and SLOWLLYY and gently chipped away at the clam until it loosened up and the turtle was free again. the clam was in pieces so i threw it away. well, just wanted to tell everyone of this unusual problem.

Is he/she ok?

weell i hope you got rid of ALL the clams in the tank.

well, the baby RES is perfectly fine. before, his claw was kindof bent funnily but it seems to be alrite now. he s swimming around in his tank rite now, poking his little head out and climbing out onto his little island of rocks.

the clam thing, that was weird. i guess it was a. . freak accident. most of the time, the stupid ugly clams stay buried in the gravel and only poke out the top of their shells, with their little feeding tubes sticking out, and the little tentacles or whatever waving around in the water. they just stay buried and occasionaly u can see them moving around. but that s all they really do. . .they re like rocks. rocks that sometimes move.

i do want to get rid of my clams. .. before, they were a big novelty to me and i thought it was cool to have freshwater clams in my tank. but now they kindof disgust me . .just like the ghost shrimp i got disgusted me, just like the ramshorn snails i got eventually disgusted me. . but the clams have never hurt anything before. and i guess they re good, cuz they eat debris and fish poo and microorganisms in the water. ..so i ll just leave them.

i doubt the turtle getting his little foot stuck inside the clam thing will happen again. if it does, i can just transfer him to my other tank.

If it happened once it can happen again. You may not be lucky enough to find your turtle alive the second time around.

Well, interesting...there seem to be quite a lot of "freak accidents"...considering the Steve Irving thing...

argh!! it happened again!! this time, the turtle was swimming against the glassa and i heard a clacking noise>>i looked and there was a tiny clam stuck to its claw!!! i removed the clam by cracking it open with a small hammer and then i took out all the gravel and replaced it. no more clam problems!!

I guess that's the only way to be sure...