Pet Clams: Homemade Freshwater Clam Food

A simple recipe for feeding your freshwater pet clams.

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The Care of Freshwater Clams

Next to toxic aquarium water (ammonia and the like), the feeding of freshwater clams has been their demise in aquarium culture. Many unsuspecting people are told their clams do not require food and believing the “experts” innocent fish keepers wake up weeks later to find their clams dead. They had starved to death.

If the clams are buried in the substrate and in a smaller tank (large too, depending on the number of clams), they destroy the waters’ parameters quickly, killing fish and invertebrates.

This recipe is one I am successfully feeding my clams. They are growing noticeably when I measure them each month. Their shells are hard and remain intact.

Use this at your own risk, as I will not be held responsible for any undesirable outcome that may occur.

All of the ingredients are pureed in the clams’ aquarium water and frozen into ice cubes for long-term storage. The fish and larger invertebrates eat the leftover bits. These measurements are not exact. I feed three or more times a week.

Clam Diet Recipe

Beef Liver or

Beef Heart or

Hamburger or

Fish with Roe (best)

Beef Blood (drippings from beef package)

1 tsp Cod Liver Oil

¼ tsp Yeast

In addition to this diet, I target feed my clams with these:

¼ to 1 tsp Organic Carrot Juice (they love this)

Organic Spirulina Powder

Pureed Duckweed

Pureed Spinach

¼ o 1 tsp Milk

They will also eat algae from my pond and leftover (tiny) bits of fish flakes when available.

This is a well-aged setup. Overall, the community tank and its inhabitants are healthy, active and doing well. The tank has biological filtration, live plants and sand-sediment as a substrate. All of the chemical readings are in order as well. I test frequently before and after feeding the tank just to make sure it can handle the bio-load of suspended food. The readings do not spike.

Like I said, it works for us and Use at Your Own Risk.