Thinking about getting clams.

[ekfishlover2011]

I have never had clams before, and dont know anybody personally that has. I have a freshwater tank. Is it true that they improve water quality? What do they eat? How do i feed them? How often? How do they grow? How many can/should i get (see signature for current stocking and tank sizes)? Is it possible for my betta to break shells? How many can fit in his tank if not? Are there different breeds that are commonly sold? Do Pennsylvania Petsmart or Petco's sell them and whats typical price. If not, will ones i pick from river be fine to use? Answer as many of these questions as you can please. Thank you for your help.

[Scrup]

I'll do my best, answers are in RED.


I have never had clams before, and dont know anybody personally that has. I have 5 in my pond that I bring inside for the winter. Have managed to keep them for a few years now. I have a freshwater tank.
Is it true that they improve water quality?No, IIRC some saltwater clams actually can "eat" nitrates, but I think it is involved with photosynthesis somehow. Freshwater clams can absorb nitrates, but it is pretty bad for em and usually kills them fairly fast. They will however eat tiny invisible floating things in the water, including "Pea Soup Algae" What do they eat? How do i feed them? How often? I feed mine 20 drops of phytoplankton (for marine tanks) every few days. That paired with a well established tank seems to be adequate. How do they grow? Very. Slowly. How many can/should i get (see signature for current stocking and tank sizes)? I would do 1 tops, see below. Is it possible for my betta to break shells? No. Unless your betta has a jackhammer. How many can fit in his tank if not? One, see below. Are there different breeds that are commonly sold? I have seen two breeds for sale around here. Mostly in LFS or online. Do Pennsylvania Petsmart or Petco's sell them and whats typical price. No idea, but I wouldn't pay more than $2 a clam. If not, will ones i pick from river be fine to use? Absolutely not. Do NOT harvest wild clams, this is asking for a disaster, both with your tank and possibly with the authorities. Answer as many of these questions as you can please. Thank you for your help.

Clams are not that entertaining, as you will rarely see them moving. They dig in the sand, move around trying to find the best spot to get food, then stay there. When one of them dies, it rots very fast, usually resulting in a huge ammonia spike and dead fish. That is usually my indication that a clam has died, when the fish start showing signs of ammonia poisoning, or they start dying. I strongly advise against them mixed with anything else that you care about until you are comfortable that you can keep them alive. If they are sick, you probably wont notice, and when they die, normally the shells open up, but if they are buried, it wont always open, and you wont notice until you either smell it, or your fish go belly up.

If you want something to help with water quality, spend some money and upgrade to a planted setup, or get another filter. Get some purigen. Upgrade your filter media. Clams are not a good fit for this purpose.

If you want to keep a mellow invertebrate that is a good conversation piece and also works in coldwater tanks, requires a little extra care, and helps keep the substrate stirred up a bit, but has the potential to cause a huge ammonia spike, get some clams.

I have found ebay to be the best place to get them FYI.

Hope this helps.

[mermaidwannabe]

Thanks for the info! Now that my 20-gallon is mature (only a couple weeks from being a full year old), I've been thinking of getting a freshwater clam or two. Especially since I've rehomed my dojos and barbs into the 65, and all that's left in my 20 are some RCS, glofish, zebra danios and WC minnows. All very small creatures that shouldn't hurt the clams.

Where do you purchase the food you give them? I think you said it was marine phytoplankton ... And would administering with a syringe ensure they get some?

Next step is finding an LFS that sells them. Or that will special order them for me. Just one or two in the 20. I don't wish to overstock...

-- mermaidwannabe

[Scrup]

As far as the food goes, I just got some at a LFS. I'll check the brand when I get home. I would check ebay for the clams. Never had a problem with it. I'll look up a link when I get home, ebay is blocked at work.

[mermaidwannabe]

Can you feed clams zooplankton as well as phytoplankton? Or are they strictly vegans?

[mermaidwannabe]

Anyone ???

[ekfishlover2011]

Wow. I never knew u could get in trouble for taking river clams. I used to take all sorts of stuff from the river. My whole tank once was stuff i got from river. Crayfish, minnows, some kind of plant, and some mud-filled (i thought they were alive but nope, just mud) clamshells. Maybe thats why everything died... They dead clams. Nevermind, i dont want them. Thanks alot for answering all of my questions Scrup. You are very informative. I would have made a huge mistake buying those.

P.S. Curious, what happens to tank if you use the wild clams? Do they bring some kind of diseases or something? I see your answers have helped many people about some of these same questions.

[smaug]

I kept quite a few fw pa creek clams for years. My daughter "stocked" them in our 20 gal years ago. She put in maybe 20 quarter sized ones she picked while camping one year. When I tore that tank down there were about 5 of them still alive. I fed them nothing,probably explains why I had only 5 left! I also never once saw them in the 5 yrs that tank was operating. That fish place that pet place in lancaster pa sells them for 2 to 3 bucks each if memory serves me.

[PuddlesAquaFarm]

I added some clams to my freshwater tank. They burrowed into the gravel and I never saw them again until I moved a year later. I would say just pass on them.

[ekfishlover2011]

That Fish Place sells them? Hmmm. I knew they had to have them in there somewhere. They have almost everything. O well. I dont want them anymore.

[Cermet]

The issue with any wild animal is that they are loaded with parasites, and other bad guys - this also makes an issue for a tank (esp. with tank breed fish who have never been exposed to these illnesses). Many of these bad guys are kept in check by constant water flow and lack of nitrates/phosphates but in any home (read enclosed) aquarium these chemicals are orders of magitude higher so bad guys can go 'wild' (bad pun), that is multiply uncontrollably. Also, in the wild only the super healthy tend to live due to these factors but tank breed are not this healthy. Store bought is safer (most times.) Dr.fosther/Smith sells clams. Clams do not do well unless you can feed them properly and have very clean water (mature is not the issue) that is changed (mature just means you have a lot of nitrates that are kept at a modest level due to wc). My two cents and good luck.

[Scrup]

Mature tanks also have more established microorganisms. A tank that is only a few weeks or a few months old is still finding its balance and establishing suitable cultures to help keep filter feeders fed.

[mermaidwannabe]

So, would a well-maintained tank that will be a year old on Sept. 26th be considered "mature"?

[Scrup]

I would say so.

[UncleWillie]

The issue with any wild animal is that they are loaded with parasites, and other bad guys .... Many of these bad guys are kept in check by constant water flow and lack of nitrates/phosphates but in any home (read enclosed) aquarium these chemicals are orders of magitude higher so bad guys can go 'wild' (bad pun), that is multiply uncontrollably.....

All wild animals are loaded with parasites? That's news to me.

Native freshwater mussels (Unionids) can live up to 100 years - they are pretty tough critters if they survived all the nasty chemicals that were present in the water during the industrial revolution, high levels of mercury, etc. EKFISHLOVER, Many of these are protected, threatened or endangered so that's why you can get in some serious trouble if you are spotted with the wrong critter in your hands. However...
Freshwater clams (Corbicula) are introduced, small, short-lived and very abundant. (They are easily disinguishable from the Unionids because of their size and rows of ridges in their shells). This makes them ideal for your first trial of keeping clams, but I wouldn't pay for them... they are everywhere. Go scoop up some of these guys and try them out.

As mentioned by Cermet and Scrup, they've just got to be fed properly. They aren't like fish where you can feed them a few days, them leave them be for a few days. They need a constant supply of food (and flow) so that they can filter out tiny particles and feed off of them. The reason why most clams die in aquaria is that they slowly (very very slowly) starve to death. Since they don't have a visible mouth or belly - people just don't know if they are getting enough food.

In our fish lab, we are holding some gigantic Georgia elephant-ears (Elliptio dariensis) and Altamaha slabshells (Elliptio hopetonensis) in a 220 gallon tank. We feed crushed pellets and flakes each day when we feed their tankmates (warmouth, bluehead chubs, and channel cats - all messy eaters). This summer, we would also bring in about 50 gallons of deep-green, plankton-filled water from our catfish ponds and dump it in the tank. The water was crystal clear in 18 hours from them filtering the water.

Sorry for the tangent, but the moral is... a constant supply of food is needed, but as you can imagine, keeping ammonia down when constantly dumping crushed food in can be a tough task, but it is doable. So just start out small with a few individuals, keep an eye on water quality, make sure they stay open and you can see them filtering, and you should be good.

[mermaidwannabe]

Thank you, Uncle Willie. That was informative.

[ekfishlover2011]

That was informative. :) Yea, definitely sounds like im not trying that for a while. Maybe in 10 or so years when i have a job that gives me better hours that i can actually work with my tank. Also id need much better flow, as all my flow is vertical, and id assume clams need horizontal for the filter-feeding. Normally what i would take from the river would be the little tiny inch at the biggest shells, only once have i ever seen a mussel, and man that was HUGE!!!! My stepmom picked it up and came to show us what she found, called it a clam. It was bigger than a dinner plate. Id never get one of those, so i should be good with avoiding the endangered and restricted species. At this point much later in life when i try this ill probably make like a hillstream tank and keep the hillstream loaches and clams together in this high current tank, maybe add some minnows from the river while im there. Ill get the minnows and clams first, treat with my invert-safe parasite medication after 2 weeks of settling in, and then after another month or two ill add the hillstreams. That way im sure that the tank is parasite free. That sounds like a good idea. Ill do all this im predicting... 15 years from now. Yea, that should be long enough...