Clams

[juliemichelle]

I was reading in Dr.s Foster/Smith that freshwater clams eat nitrates and are great for turning a not so clear tank to crystal clear. For my 55 I was thinking of having my LFS order a couple clams and some snails for me. What do you think? The clams are on their website (might be liveaquaria.com) if anyone wants to read their propaganda. My tank right now has 6 cichlids, 100 cichlid fry and a freshwater eel (debateable).

 

[cmedalis]

I have no experience with them, but I've seen a few posting about them:
http://www.thekrib.com/Fish/clams.html
And the usual Usenet search:
http://groups.google.com/groups?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=freshwater+clams

They do seem fairly neat, but from what I gather, the feeding of them can be messy, unless you have high amouts of microscopic foods readily available for them. Also, I've read that they don't take well to captive life, but hey, Reef tanks often have clams/scallops/etc.