Keeping freshwater clams

[AirNomad99]

I've always been curious in keeping aquatic invertebrates and to me one of the coolest ones I want to keep is a freshwater clam. I did a little bit of research and it turns out they aren't as easy to keep as I thought. Is anyone here familiar with keeping them? Any kind of input or advice or even links to further reading/research would be appreciated

 

[The Seraph]

All I know is that they need a soft substrate to burrow in and lots of algae and other microorganisms floating in the water to feed. I would recommend freshwater shrimp. All they need is a cycled tank and food and they will thrive and probably breed, depending on the species.

 

[AirNomad99]

All I know is that they need a soft substrate to burrow in and lots of algae and other microorganisms floating in the water to feed. I would recommend freshwater shrimp. All they need is a cycled tank and food and they will thrive and probably breed, depending on the species.

I follow a few shrimp breeding pages on Instagram and the tanks for them look really nice and its so cool to see all of the different kinds. I've heard that shrimps make good tank mates for clams as well so maybe one day I'll be able to have the best of both worlds

 

[schmiggle]

I looked into this once. It's quite challenging--there's essentially no possibility of just having enough food floating around in the tank, so you have to grow it yourself, separately (algae are commonly used). Once you have dense colonies you can try to feed the clams directly.

 

[The Seraph]

I looked into this once. It's quite challenging--there's essentially no possibility of just having enough food floating around in the tank, so you have to grow it yourself, separately (algae are commonly used). Once you have dense colonies you can try to feed the clams directly.

Would infusoria work?

 

[The Snark]

I'm clam clueless but I know a little about contained freshwater systems. Before you even get out of the gate it is absolutely essential you know how much water needs to be recirculated, how to maintain nitrogen levels and the required temperature. It's way too easy to lose track of something and have your animals healthy one day and die off the next.

 

[schmiggle]

Would infusoria work?

They should. I don't recall clams being especially picky, as long as the food is very small.

 

[The Seraph]

They should. I don't recall clams being especially picky, as long as the food is very small.

Gotcha. This concept just piqued my interest and I have always been better at raising infusoria than free floating algae.

 

[schmiggle]

Gotcha. This concept just piqued my interest and I have always been better at raising infusoria than free floating algae.

Tbh I wish I had your problem, I always get algae in my fertilizer

 

[Smokehound714]

refugium would help

 

[The Snark]

Tbh I wish I had your problem, I always get algae in my fertilizer

It coats our upstairs porch using runoff from the roof. Seems the only place it doesn't readily grow is where you want it to.

@schmiggle Little trick. Buy some galvanized hardware cloth, that large square hole screen stuff. Cover areas you don't want algae to grow and water through the cloth. The tiniest micro-amount of zinc and those free ions devastates moss and algae.
Got moss or algae growing on your roof? String lengths of galvanized fence wire the length of the roof at the hip. Rain run down will do the rest.

PS I eagerly await a scientific explanation of how this works.

 

[mantisfan101]

Maybe try getting some gunk while chaning out a filter and leaving it in a container full of water in bright light for a couple days/weeks. You could also always try culturing bbs, vinegar eels, micro worms, etc but I’m not sire if clams eat those.

 

[schmiggle]

bbs, vinegar eels, micro worms,

Those are much too big. I wouldn't rely on anything bigger than a couple hundred microns, and really they prefer things in the 10-50 micron range. @The Seraph how big are your infusoria.

See this paper: https://www.cefas.co.uk/publications/environment/Literature-review-on-particle-assimilation.pdf

The size you want depends on the species, but none ate anything larger than 400 microns.

PS I eagerly await a scientific explanation of how this works.

Zinc is toxic to all living things; I'm not sure why this is.

If I had more fertilizer I would use your suggestions, but I work with small volumes.

 

[The Seraph]

My infusoria are extremely fine. They just look like cloudy water, though it you get up really close, they look like extremely tiny, smaller than a pin point sized white dots.

 

[schmiggle]

My infusoria are extremely fine. They just look like cloudy water, though it you get up really close, they look like extremely tiny, smaller than a pin point sized white dots.

That doesn't really tell us much. The human eye can resolve shapes down to 18 microns (I think?) but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 30 and 300 micron microbes without a microscope. The clams would care, though.

 

[The Seraph]

That doesn't really tell us much. The human eye can resolve shapes down to 18 microns (I think?) but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 30 and 300 micron microbes without a microscope. The clams would care, though.

I don't exactly have a microscope, so apologies.

 

[The Snark]

I don't exactly have a microscope, so apologies.

There's a video out there, might be on Youtube, that is a macro of micro-organisms as they get glomped by various crustaceans. It's sort of hypnotic, a strange slow motion world unto itself.

 

[schmiggle]

I don't exactly have a microscope, so apologies.

No need to apologize. If it matters--for example, if you would like to keep a clam--your other option, I realized, is to buy filters of different sizes and see if the infusoria fit through.

 

[hecklad]

So this is in response to the initial comment.
I own about a dozen freshwater clams, all wild caught from the TN river. If you live in an area where they're invasive and want a tank dedicated to them, I would suggest digging up your own and using the substrate in which you found them. That should cause there to be a healthy microbe population in the tank that will feed them. Another way to feed them that has worked for me was to grind up algae pellets as much as possible into a powder. I've had them for about 5 months now so I've done something right. That said if you're wanting to have them in an already established tank then this is irrelevant

 

[dord]

I've been interested in keeping native fish with aquatic invertebrates such as freshwater mussels, particularly fingernail clams (Sphaeriidae) since they're small and don't rely on fish to reproduce. Haven't found anything on keeping them besides this.