Are my pet clams alive?
Yesterday I bought 8 Venus clams from the market, half which I cooked while the other half I kept as pets for my aquarium. They were all tightly shut when they were first put in the saltwater tank, but today their shells are a bit open (by just a crack). I also believe I saw some frilly things attached to the sides of one or two which looked like tiny fins. The water looks fine and I don't smell anything rotting, are my clams alive or dead then? I just lightly tapped some and they didn't move, does that mean they're dead? I read that it is fine to have market clams as pets, but are there any specifications on what I needed to do before putting them in the tank? Maybe slowly heating them up to a lukewarm temperature of my tank, or keeping them in a very cold tank?
I put some to their side to see if they have their siphon out, which they don't. The water is a bit foggy but that might just be because of the bio-cycle thing with new aquariums. They really don't move at all, even when I tap them, all they have done since I put them in was opening their shell a little bit, just a crack. If they were dead, would they quickly start to smell, because I smell nothing from the tank.