Other bivalves

[Aphyosemion]

I have a flame scallop in my 40 gallon breeder right now. He is one of the very few residents of the tank and I love him! He is so cool and interesting but I worry a little bit about his health. I feed him once to twice a day with a combination of phytoplankton and zooplankton which I squirt into the water near him upstream. I'm not sure if he needs larger food around baby brine shrimp size or if fine phyto and zooplankton will be sufficient. The dificulty is that you can't really tell if he is eating or not.
There are other bivalves that seem like they would be very interesting too, such as oysters and barnacles. Does anyone know where a person would get their hands on those and if it is feasable to keep them? I have heard that barnacles need a lot of fine particulate food, but with a squirt or 2 a day of the multitude of available foods, you would think that need would be easily met.
Anyone tried any other bivalves? What was your experience with them?
-Aphyosemion

[Geoff]

bivalves are really tough. Tridacna clams are the easiest since their primarily photo synthetic. what you are doing is what needs to be done. the only other thing i could suggest is making a really soupy batch of blender mush. making your own blender mush creates all kinds of different sized particles. some them are sure to be the correct size for the bivalves. if the blender mush is diverse enough than you have a pretty good chance of keeping them alive.

as for keeping the water veiwable, may be a different story. most of the bivalves you are talking about come from very nutrient rich water. water that you can not see through easily. there is a reason they live in these areas, is this the bio-tope you are looking to reproduce?

G~