Hey peoples,

I am considering placing Clams into my freshwater tank. I know that they do a great job cleaning the water or algae and leftover food.

Problem is compatibility. I have a Banjo Catfish and plants. Both of these things make me wonder if the clams will work. I know clams burrow, but are they inclined to burrow in rooted spots as opposed to unrooted? And will a Banjo Catfish attempt to eat the little guys? Or will more likely leave them alone?

Hopefully someone with some knowledge of clams can answer some of my questions.

it depends on how big the catfish is. Freshwater clams generally get to about 2 inches in length. You can buy some clams off of eBay or some other place online. My cleaning crew is 3 shrimps. They look like grass shrimps except they have a red stripe above their pincers and a red dot on each side of their tail. they are speckled with brown and grey dots. Besides this, they look like grass shrimp. Here's my fishtank: In the picture, you can't see the java moss in the back well and the moss looks ugly and dark because of the camera. I took off the background for my main picture because it makes the plants look even darker in the picture. The fish tank looks a lot better in person as the plants are actually a very bright green. The picture is a bit blurry. The moss is growing very well on the rocks and driftwood, which I got in a stream and boiled. If you look closely in the shrimp cave in the center, you might see one of my shrimps : )

Well, my Banjo catfish is 4 inches long now, and fully grown of his species is about 6 inches, so he's about as threatening to them as he'll ever be.

I know that clams filtrate the tanks water. The get microscopic algae and food out of the water that filters might miss. Why else would you get them? They can't move very much, don't add much personality to the tank, but are rather unique. Bioload is an interesting factor, but the biological capacity of my tank is HUGE. The thing is extremely heavily planted and has filtration for a tank twice its size... xD

I can't have shrimp because Banjo (the catfishes name) will eat them, I'm sure. And there is no way I'm getting rid of Banjo. He's my 2nd favourite fish in the tank...

Snails are a no-go because of the plants. Even though some apple snails aren't very plant happy, I'd still be concerned all the time. A few days gone for a weekend and the snail could have destroyed some of my plants, that wouldn't be cool...

So, the only thing that will still eat algae and food at a microscopic level is clams, thus why I inquired about their capability with Banjo and plants. Does anyone on this forum OWN clams? That would be super awesome. xD