any benefit to a regular bay clam?

got a clam out of the bay, by my house. i've had hime in my refugium, for over a month. any benefit to putting him in the main tank?

 

well Joe you've noticed the clam tends to move round in the fuge every now and a gain' ( turning the sand over real good ) ?
I my self have sevral i my fuge , they've benn in there for the last 3 months .
And yes there are benifits , they consume nitrates from the water.

Ive considered putting a couple in my main tank, but some fish/inverts might take a liking to the little syphons they put out above the sand bed.

 

probably no damage to putting him in the display tank... might do more good in the fuge though

 

just wondering. thanks guys

 

did you get it from Jersey? Obviously it seems to be doing quite well, but I always just assumed that a clam from colder waters wouldn't survive in a tropical environment

 

Summer water temperatures (August-September) come up to mid 70's in NYC area. Mud flats that are exposed at low tide probably get even hotter. The first Copper Banded Butterfly I ever saw was a lost soul that got carried up on the gulf stream and was swimming off Rockaway Beach, part of New York Harbor. Although his days were numbered, he didn't appear to be dying from the temperature.

I had bought some stuff to make fish food (thanks to Omard) and bought some clams that were sitting on ice, in the butcher's case.

When I got home, I looked at the clams, and then at the tank... So I pulled a bowl of water out of the tank and sat the clams in it. They started opening and siphoning almost immediately. Two were selected for in-tank trials, everyone else ended up fish food.
The only problem is you simply don't see them. If one were to die, you wouldn't find out until it got pretty rotten.
The fish don't know they are there, there is no 'picking on the tubes' of the clams, but that might be different, depending on the type of fish you have and how much bottom scavanging they do.
I don't notice the siphons, so every once in a while (3 weeks) I pull them out and make sure they are still alive. So far, so good.

 

Well if things don't work out, there's always oregano, butter and bread crumbs.