# Freshwater clams?



## Tikibirds

Anybody know anything about these guys?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-live-fre...514?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35b75be882

Can I keep them in a 20 gallon with bettas? or a 10 gallon?

what do they eat?

I'm still thinking abut what to do with my 20G long when I set it back up.


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## lorax84

I researched them at one time. There is a lot to know about them, but the number one thing to realize is that they are a unique animal that requires a very unique tank setup. They are not something you can just add to your aquarium. They are bivalves that eat mostly single celled algae and infusoria, meaning once they clear your water of these food sources you will need to feed them or they will rot and die. They also require pretty heavy water flow.


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## Tikibirds

I don't really want 20 like in that auction - maybe 2 or 3.
Are they filter feeders and do they reproduce like some of the snails? What would you feed them?

I was planning on a sand bottom tank.


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## lorax84

As I said, even if you want to keep a few they need a specialized setup. Clams eat single celled organisms suspended within the water they live in. In the wild they have new water constantly flowing by them that contains these organisms. In the home aquarium, one small calm can clear your tank completely of these micro organisms in a couple days. You would then need to feed them infusoria (you can google how to grow it)


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## Olympia

Clams are pretty specialized filter feeders.
They do best on living microorganisms, which you can grow yourself.. Otherwise there are powdered foods like for bamboo shrimp which could work.. however these are very messy.

Clams also have a little feeding tube they stick out during feeding, and in such a small clam I feel like a betta would want to bite it off, and kill the clam.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mzXaaKotUdw/TwUuTSE_ROI/AAAAAAAABjI/MvTmuFoWDLU/s1600/IMG_1782.JPG


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## copperarabian

Some of my pond plants had hitchhiking freshwater clams, I had assumed they where hardy since the nursery never feed them.


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## Olympia

They probably had a ton of infurosia in there.


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## copperarabian

Olympia said:


> They probably had a ton of infurosia in there.


That's true, I bet my pond does too then since it gets at least 5 hours of sunlight a day


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## Tamyu

Clams are hardy in that they will manage to survive for quite a while in poor (for them) conditions, but eventually it catches up with them and they die. I have honestly never heard of someone succeeding to keep them alive and healthy in an aquarium with fish. They need different things, and are usually used as short term cleaning. They will clear your tank of green water very efficiently... But they requirements for living anything longer than a few months are pretty hard to manage. I believe at least six inches of substrate, high levels of calcium, a constant current with a flow of food, etc. I also believe that the common chemicals used to treat water are harmful to them, so you need to start with a base of RO water...

Seriously, they are a huge pain to keep living. I would give up on keeping them with a betta as they absolutely require a good current of water to stay alive for any decent amount of time.


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