# clams



## chance (Mar 12, 2013)

is it ok to mix live clams with shrimp? was at my local aquarium store and they had these mini clams, yellow brownish colors. they look pretty cool. had the idea of throwing a couple in the tank.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Chances of keeping them alive for any great length of time are not particularly high, which is kind of sad. I've had a number of them, kept with shrimp and fishes of various types including bottom feeders, and they are not bothered by any other animals. 

But they seem to do best in fairly cool temperatures, I think, cooler than most other critters like. No more than 70F seems to work best. I keep them with danio species, cories, kuhli loaches, several types of snail and shrimps, most of which are ok with cooler temps.. I try not to let it get above 75. Clams need a very well established tank, more so than shrimp do and supplemental feeding, because they can't pick or choose much about where they feed. They rarely move more than an inch or two from where you put them down. They are true filter feeders, but do not 'clean' water, per se. They simply suck water in and spit it out, consuming whatever they can sieve out of it

So either you feed them regularly, with greenwater or bottled Phyto for corals or Golden Pearls in the 5-50 micron size, or you need an extremely well established tank to have enough micro organisms in the water column to support even one clam without supplemental feeding. I use a big syringe, turn off the filter but leave the pump running and squirt the greenwater right over the clam. If I use the Pearls, I just put them on the surface, and let them slowly sink and circulate for up to an hour. I feed my fan shrimp the same way. Bottled Phyto I use for a bit of variety or in place of greenwater if I run out of it, but it's very expensive.

I had 3 of those white/black round shaped clams to begin with. A year later, the smallest of them is the only one still alive. Of a half dozen shark tooth clams I got much later on, which were all larger than the round ones, none lasted more than a few weeks, even with quite a bit of extra feeding. They may well have been starved beyond saving before I even got them, but there's no way to know for sure. Store told me they fed them ground flakes, but that's not something they can eat, so they'd have been starved for at least some period of time after harvesting. I have some video of them digging into the substrate somewhere, that's interesting to watch, but they really only do it once when you put them in the tank. If you pull them up, they'll eventually dig in again though.

I think the littlest clam lived because it had the least need for food, and was thus able to get enough to survive, though it has gained less than two grams in weight in that time, which is not much at all. Slightly better than subsisting, but not much. The other two lived about six and eight months, respectively. They gained more weight during their time, but the largest died first, then the second largest, which is why I think size had something to do with survival of the smallest one. 

I used to take them out and weigh them every couple of months to see if they were gaining weight, as it is the only way you can tell if they're staying static, losing or gaining. Gaining is what you want to see. You need a scale that measures at least in single grams or smaller increments.

If you get some and they do die, the shells will open up. But if you have shrimp or snails, they will quickly find the dead clam, and eat it. You might not notice a problem until the shell has been dug up by the scavengers, by which time it will be pretty clean. MTS snails are very good for this purpose, and will continue to scour the shell for days after it looks cleaned out. So if you have shrimp or snails, you are unlikely to have an ammonia spike from a clam death, which is something you will see often mentioned on some web sites as a drawback to having clams. But if several die at one time, then a spike is much more likely, as it does take time for the scavengers to clean them out, so if you have more than one, it pays to check on them regularly to make sure they're still alive.

I rather like them, but you should know that they do very little beyond bury themselves in the substrate and suck water. Typically all you can see, IF you look very closely, are the little siphons they use to breathe and eat, poking up just barely above the substrate. You might see the shoulder of the shell, but my little one is usually completely buried, as were his mates before they passed on.

They are a bit of work to maintain, and feeding them is more costly than feeding fish. They do not survive on ground up flakes, which is what the store is likely to tell you is suitable food.


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