Live Oysters in Aquarium

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Chasmodes bosquianus

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jun 22, 2008
14
4
33
Miami, FLA
Does anybody have experience keeping live oysters with fish in a brackish setup? I have heard from some that they can be detrimental due to the fact that they add biomass, adding ammonia waste and using up oxygen. Other people have told me they can actually help filtering the aquarium. Anybody have info on this?:confused:
 
I am not aware of any BW oysters, which means they would die & foul the water. Why do you want to keep them? What fish are in your tank?
 
If you want them just for looks try to find some old dead oyster bed chunks. That's what I have in mine. But beware it took all night in a very concentrated bleach solution to get all the nasty stuff out of them. In the morning there were still some stragglers.
 
seems like an interesting idea, but it probably isn't too easy to keep them alive in a standard brackish tank
 
There are fresh water oysters of some sort. I remember my sister finding some in lake Okanagan in BC. Fresh might adapt better to brackish water. Depending on how brackish it is.
But how do you feed a filter feeder, in a pristine aquarium? I guess salt water coral people know all about that.
I wouldn't think they add much biomass. The living tissue is relatively small, compared to the size of the shell. And they are not very active. If they don't eat much, they don't excrete much.
But you will probably have problems with shell erosion.
 
They'll be fine. oysters act as a crab or snail does eating detritus, fish waste. as long as your tank is cycled and you don't begin to see slime algae and yellow or reed water color you'lll be fine. if thery open and stay open they're probably deaed and take them out. P.S. i think they are mussles not clams. not positive but worth a google.
 
Unless they come from the same SG as your tank, they will not make the switch.
 
i've read a very long thread about super market mussels doing well in salinity above 1.012, the way to find out is to thaw out a batch in a big bowl of tank water and remove any dead ones(they fall open) daily and do water changes twice a day, after a few days you'll have a couple live ones left that should do well in your tank.
 
my LFS sells fresh water muscles. I don't know anything about them helping with filtration but i guess they add an interesting character to the tank.
 
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