sunnygirl
09-21-2003, 3:48 AM
my little brother brought me two clams he dug from the local stream, and he wants me to put them in my tank. theyre pretty big. one is about 5 inches long and the other is about 3 inches long. so what i want to know is what diseases/parasites do they carry, and is there a way i can treat them in a seperate container to rid them of anything they may pass on to my fish? also, they have this black bristley hairlike growth on parts of them. what is this? i have them in a bucket of water right now. if i decide to keep them in a bucket or whatever, do they need substrate, or filtration? what should i feed them?
Cearbhaill
09-21-2003, 6:45 AM
Freshwater clams are filter feeders- extremely difficult to feed in an enclosed/managed environment like an aquarium. Plus when they die- how will you know? They'd be invisibly buried and rotting in your substrate.
Do you know whether what you found is a clam or a mussel?
I believe the freshwater mussels lifecycle contains a phase where they parasitize the fish?
And IMO bringing in anything wild is asking for parasite problems.
Personally I'd use this as a teaching opportunity- go online with little brother and learn about clams/mussels then decide together that putting them back into the stream would be the kindest thing.
JMO.
Tim Bo
09-21-2003, 10:23 AM
Very hard to keep alive IMHE.
A bunch of google inks:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=freshwater+%2B+clams