Freshwater Clams

[talal101]

Doubtful... that's oysters, not clams

excuse me as I go hide my face in shame

 

[Mucky_Waters]

I had a couple clams in my last pond. I placed them in my lily pots and seemed to do fine. The type I had don't bury themselves in the soil, they just close up tight when they are disturbed. They looked something like the one in this picture. They can push themselves around a bit with their tongue, or "foot", so they can push themselves out of the pot sometimes, but most of the time mine seemed to be happy in the pots.
I guess they do clean the water a bit, but I wouldn't count on them replacing your filter system.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Mucky -- naw, these little guys won't replace the filters, but I'm always anything 'natural' that adds to the overall balance of the pond.

The clams arrived in the mail yesterday! I did a quick water acclimation, then checked each one individually before tossing them into the pond. A total of 17 clams mostly around 3/4 to 1 inch, and they all appear in good health (solid, tight shells, so they still have their strength). I'm starting all of them in the sandy bottom. I will be curious to see just how much they move themselves around.

I think the worst part will be the Fall cleaning. I normally use a coarse net to scoop up the leaves and sand, and let the sand fall back out of the net. I have to be careful to pull out the trapdoor snails I scoop up, so sorting out the clams will be no different... However I'm planning on getting some bottom plants from a local river this year, and once they're established in the sand I don't want to disturb them. Maybe I can use another pump like a leave-blower, to create a heavy underwater current and try to prevent the leaves from settling until they float down to the other pumps.

 

[Nepen]

How's the clam doing?

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Hard to say. I'm still fighting string algae, so I haven't even seen my sand for awhile. I guess one of these days I should pull the net through the sand and take a look at a few of the clams to see if they're still alive or if I have empty shells.

 

[SE18]

I don't have fish so I put snails, clams and everything else I can find in the water so they can enjoy themselves and I can watch their slow progress

 

[combatwombat]

@Shdwdrgn: This was such an interesting experiment. How did it turn out? 7 years later, do you still have clams in your pond or have you moved on from this?

 

[poconojoe]

@Shdwdrgn: This was such an interesting experiment. How did it turn out? 7 years later, do you still have clams in your pond or have you moved on from this?

Yep, old thread, but knowing the outcome would be nice. 7 years of experimentation should have given some results.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Unfortunately it didn't. I don't believe any of them survived through the first year. Even more strange, I've never found any shells. I regularly sweep the top of the sand every Fall while cleaning leaves, and I don't think clams bury themselves deep enough to not be seen, so it's been somewhat of a mystery. The only local predator that might have gotten to them would be raccoons, but would they dive down into the water?

I guess I could grab a shovel next time I need to get into the pond, and see what's under the sand. Once the water really warms up I'm planning to pull out all the logs and pick up the various large river rocks which have fallen to the bottom over the last few years.

 

[combatwombat]

@Shdwdrgn: Interesting! Bummer it didn't work out. I've never heard of a raccoon diving, but they're wiley little bandits, so I wouldn't put it past one if it's hungry enough. Do you have otters or mink in your area?

@poconojoe: I was looking at @Shdwdrgn's profile and saw that they were online last night, so thought I'd go for it.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Yeah I was looking for troubleshooting info because one of my pumps is dying. Google brought up one of my own threads here so I figured I'd log in to keep my account active. Might be as simple as getting a new impeller, but I decided to order a whole new pump so if I can fix the old one I'll have a backup on hand.

Anyway, could be otters but they would have had to travel about half a mile from the nearest water source and climbed my fence. And most likely would have eaten all my fish long before discovering the clams...

 

[j.w]

Been a long time no see you @Shdwdrgn Glad to see you back here!

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Oh I've always been around, and my pond is still humming along, I just haven't been on the forum much lately. I did finally discover why I was having a heron problem though -- there's a @$%@ heron reserve just a couple miles down the road!!!

 

[ms connie]

Since another discussion reminded me of this idea, I thought I would start a new thread. Does anyone have clams in their pond? Any problems that we should be aware of?

From my brief reading on them...

• They are filter-feeders and supposedly help with green water
• Their movement is limited, so it does not appear likely that they could climb the walls of a man-made pond
  
• Certain species eject their young into the water, which can act like a parasite and clog a fish's gills
• Fish may eat very small clams
• If there is not enough food in the water, the clam population will die back, but you must remove dead ones (although I would think that would provide a feast for the fish?)
  
• Any parasitic and invertebrate medications will kill the clams. This includes copper treatments.

I know they do well in sand, but I can't seem to find if they can bury into pea gravel. I did manage to find some on ebay that look ideal -- only grow to 2", are live-bearing inside the adult clams so they do not hurt the fish, and tolerate temperatures of 35F-84F / 2C-30C. This appears to be the same species and has a lot of good info on them: http://www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?fr=1&si=537

So, any thoughts on keeping them in a pond?

I want to try them.Would the live freshwater clams at the fish market work? I'm thinking that if they populated I could dip them out. I have tried a few things to clear the green water and nothing has worked so far.

 

[j.w]

I want to try them.Would the live freshwater clams at the fish market work? I'm thinking that if they populated I could dip them out. I have tried a few things to clear the green water and nothing has worked so far.

@ms connie

I don't know anything about them.
Maybe start your own thread and ask about them.