Does anyone have any oysters in their reef tank?

[Anonymous]

Not those fancy orange things, I mean the common oysters used in the food industry.

I could easily get some from one of the oyster boats we work on.

They are getting quite valuable around here, New Jersey's Quota's for Oyster in the Delaware bay are very low this year.

I wonder how come someone isin't raising propagated oysters for food. They are filter feeders right? It seems to me that they could be raised in a tank with other fish and they would help filter the water.


Am I totally out in left field with that?


Anyway, any harm in putting one in my tank?

 

[Anonymous]

I had some come in on live rock once. They were about an inch long, and looked to be like the edible kind. They lived six months and then croaked.

They are filter feeders, and I never fed mine (I was keeping nutrients low for other reasons.)

People are propogating oysters for sale as food, but none of that is done in tanks (except the larval stage part, maybe). They're raised in nets in the ocean/inlets. It's a rather large business on the Northeast coast.

Problem is that it's not terribly profitable as the oysters grow slowly, and inconsistently.


But you could probably keep some in your tank for a while, if they were from warmer waters and you fed them.

 

[Anonymous]

I know they propogate them in the ocean


The biggest problem with growing them in nets is they become clumped together if they are not raked apart often. then no one wants to buy them.

 

[Anonymous]

They do, I think. Pearl is big business as well as for food.

 

[Meloco14]

If I remember correctly from my mariculture class, oysters, along with mussels, are grown on hanging ropes. This is because, as you said, they can become otherwise clumped and fuse together. I have not heard of them being grown in nets; as we know they need something to attach to. As 7E mentioned, growing oysters for pearls is also big business, and is done a lot in asia. The security around pearl farms is very tight since people try to sneak in at night and steal pearls. Anyway, getting back to your question, I believe they will survive in a tank if they have adequate food. The problem in our reef tanks (aside from being the wrong temperature for North American oysters) is that we don't have enough plankton to feed them. They are not photosynthetic. I think if you were able to feed them you would be fairly successful with them. As far as raising them in tanks for food, this is difficult because they will fuse to the tanks, making them next to impossible to get off. The shells will also grow to the shape of the tank if they fuse to a corner, and these unnatural shaped shells are very undesirable to restaurants and seafood markets. This has been a big problem in rock scallop mariculture, because rock scallops will not attach to a rope with byssal threads. They need to fuse to a hard substrate. If you are really interested in mariculture I can go on with the problems of raising bivalves in tanks, such as cost and feeding, etc. But I think you get the idea. HTH

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info.


Right now they are going for 40$ a bushel straight from the ocean.

Today they closed the Delaware bay because of an oil slick so my business is going to be hurting this year.

 

[Rob Top]

I always thought it would be cool to have one with a pearl in it. At Disney there is a pearl company that has you pick an oyster, they pop it open get the pearl and mount it for you, nice gimick. couldn't get them to sell me one alive though. Cool thought too bad it's not practical.

 

[Anonymous]

I had a very large one on a live rock for about 2 years or so. Never really grew, eventually the shell started breaking off at the tips, and it died.

I think Meloco summed up all the problems of raising them in a tank well. They raise Crassostrea gigas near here and you can eat them so fresh they're still moving a bit when you squirt lemon on them.

 

[FragMaster]

YUMMY YUMMY!!!!
I love oysters on the half shell!!!

Another little throw back in collecting pearls from oysters is that in a 3 ton haul only around 3-4 oysters produce perfect pearls
But then those that collect the pearls obviously sell them as fresh seafood as well I would think. SO I guess its a win win sort of thing, save for one being a REALY big win LOL!!

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, pearl is rare, and that's why the Japanese plants sand/whaterver in there to give them high yield, something like 95%+.

 

[pwj1286]

If they are easy to breed and maintain, would it be cool if they spawned? Its like having a supply of DT's Oyster Eggs in your tank, feeding acroporas and other inverts.
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[Anonymous]

Yeah, pearl is rare, and that's why the Japanese plants sand/whaterver in there to give them high yield, something like 95%+.

They usually use the shell of another bivalve as a nucleus; mussel or another oyster.

 

[FragMaster]

SevenE: They use small polished pieces of oyster shell actualy. That methode yields a pearl worth considerably less in the jewlery trade then a natural pearl.

Thats why I said (and is fact) out of 3 tons of oysters you will only see 3 -4 perfect pearls. I didnt say "pearls" were rare I said "perfect" pearls were rare.
(I should have used "natural" in there too but oh well.)

I hope you mean they get a 95% yield every 3-6 years because that how long it takes for an oyster to make a pearl.