Bivalve (clam/mussel) in filtration?

[Andyroo]

Greetings all.
Does anybody use freshwater clams or mussels in your filtration?
I've got a culture of what seem to be zebra/quagga from a local river; I'm growing them out for ID (Govt + University), & wondering how I might accelerate this grow-out, and if there might be positives to the aquarium (a totally closed/protected culture). They're currently with card-tetras & fem-beta & fem-guppies in a 20gal blackwater system of bamboo, bamboo leaves & almond leaves with only a little wave-maker, so I need to change the water but kind'a try not to... I've also got a windowsill green-water system, but the ostracods in there seem to "disappear" anything that's not either a guppy or a dragonfly larvae.

I'm hoping others have experience with other more "responsible" species.
We've got another tiny white pond-clam that should be native, but, again, we've not made a good ID & I've not seen/found one in a couple of years.

 

[FJB]

Zebra and quagga mussels are ecological and economic disasters in parts of the world where they don’t belong (such as anywhere other than the Eurasian regions where they come from). Aquarium hobbyists should discourage their keeping, propagation, or moving them between infected and uninfected areas.

 

[Backfromthedead]

Zebra and quagga mussels are ecological and economic disasters in parts of the world where they don’t belong (such as anywhere other than the Eurasian regions where they come from). Aquarium hobbyists should discourage their keeping, propagation, or moving them between infected and uninfected areas.

Are these mussels able to spread their eggs/larvae into municipal water or sewage via water changes?

 

[Andyroo]

Agreed, F FJB & Backfromthedead . My water changes usually go to the lawn; this water goes onto a hot driveway just in case I've ID'd these correctly.

"Are these mussels able to spread their eggs/larvae into municipal water or sewage via water changes?" - apparently so, though maybe not sewage. Boat fouling & ballast, certainly.