FW clams anyone ever have them? they should be here thrusday

[zilla870]

lets see i also bought anbus nana, 12 rummynose, 5 marlbed hatchets, 5 tripod pond snails for my pond, etc.....shipping was only 20 buck. if i have an order i get alot i one time. dont want to list the whole order.

 

[Guest]

So,,, how are they doing? I want updates!

 

[zilla870]

all 3 are alive and one of them moved about 3 or 4 inch under my gravel. 2nd one this morning is now fully cover and 3rd one is still 1/2 to 3/4 covered.

 

[Guest]

How do you know they are alive? Do they move? Sorry, I just want to be ready for when mine come.

 

[zilla870]

thats ok. from what i can tell they will crack their shell open a bit and let their vent out to eat. in one why out the other side. ask all the question you want. it no problem. i did some more read on them and if your going to med your tank with anything pull them out. and one more time they dont like copper in water.

please ask anything you want i will see if i can answer and will see what they are doing for you. so you will have a better idea when yours show up.

 

[krap101]

and if you look closely on the right side (i think) you can see a lil vent... or maybe its both sides because depends on which side is up :/ its really cool. its like a lil hole with feelers around it

 

[zilla870]

yeah it so cool to see them feed.

 

[krap101]

i dont really see anything go into the filters i just see them suck the water up and i see those lil "feelers" moving around

 

[zilla870]

that is how they fed suck water in and eat. i wonder if that fry powder food would me good for them.

 

[Guest]

So they are not going to completely hide under the gravel? If they do, is it okay to pull them out? Is there an easy way to tell if they are alive? I'm worried they will die and I will have no idea.

 

[krap101]

well i have sand... and every now and then i see some sand flying up

 

[Blucat]

Do you actually have special food you put in the tank to feed them? How do you manually ffeed them?

 

[Guest]

I was planning on just letting them have the extra food on the bottom of the tank, I do use sinking pellets in addition to my crisps. Hopefully they like shrimp.

 

[smidget]

I'm not sure how comparable these species you guys have to some of the FW mussel species I worked with but I work for a conservation authority and we did a lot of work with species-at-risk mussels.

I've never kept any in an aquarium but when sampling for them in a river they don't always have to be completely buried. Some are, some aren't. They just need to be close enough to the surface to feed.

Like said previously, if they are dead, their shell will open or you can pull them out of your substrate and if they don't dig back in with their foot then they are probably dead.

What's really neat about these guys (or the ones we we're working with) is that they have these "lures" that they hang out of their shells that look like fish. These in turn attract prey fish and when they go to bite the lure the mussel release it's viligers to attach onto the fish. Once they mature they just drop off and it's baby mussels eveywhere!

 

[zilla870]

my clams are doing great, i moved them closer to where the output of the filter is so they will have a easier time feeding. all three are still alive. and doing anyone thing that fry food would be good for calms because of the size and if it sink

 

[Veneer]

What's really neat about these guys (or the ones we we're working with) is that they have these "lures" that they hang out of their shells that look like fish. These in turn attract prey fish and when they go to bite the lure the mussel release it's viligers to attach onto the fish. Once they mature they just drop off and it's baby mussels eveywhere!

The "golden Asian clam" (Corbicula fluminea) of the aquarium hobby differs from many other freshwater bivalves in that its larvae - hermaphroditically-recruited veligers - are free-living, in contrast to the parasitic glochidea of most freshwater "mussels".

[C. fluminea is androgenetic - that is, sperm containing the entire paternal genome (rather than just half) enters an egg (here, of the same individual), whereupon it "kicks out" the entire maternal genome; all offspring are thus clones of the "father". In addition, there is preliminary evidence that certain disparate species of this genus are capable of "parasitizing" each others' eggs; the sperm cell of one species, upon entering the egg of another, removes the original DNA, forcing the clam to brood the offspring of another species.]

(http://www.bio.utexas.edu/grad/shedtke/Undergrad.html & http://www.bio.utexas.edu/grad/shedtke/Research.html)

But I digress.

A care sheet may be viewed here.

A note - some aquarists place C. fluminea in their wet-dry filters, or against the front plane of their aquaria (often with the aid of a plastic strip, as is sold for substrate terracing).

 

[Veneer]

I am glad you posted this because my LFS has Shark tooth fresh water clams. They have a very large shark tooth shaped extension on the back of their shell. Really cool but I wanted to know about keeping them before investing in the them. That and the clams are about 4-5 invhes long so I didn't think they would be a good addition to a 10 gallon.

Can you provide a picture?

 

[Guest]

I can't wait, mine 6 should be here tomorrow! BTW, thanks for the link Veneer!

 

[zilla870]

um what if your first post about Veneer???????