Aquaculture Home

Project Managers

John Scarpa, Ph.D. and Leslie N. Sturmer (University of Florida)

Project Team

R. LeRoy Creswell (University of Florida) and Charles M. Adams, Ph.D. (University of Florida)

Project Description

The overall goal is to evaluate, demonstrate, and develop aquaculture of the sunray venus clam, Macrocallista nimbosa, as a new species to diversify the bivalve culture industry in Florida. In our 2006-08 FLSG project, we successfully spawned and cultured larvae through metamorphosis and hatchery phase using techniques similar to those for hard clam hatcheries.

We hypothesize that nursery and grow-out of the sunray clam to a harvestable size may be accomplished using culture methods similar to those employed by the Florida hard clam industry. Therefore, the objectives of this proposal are to:

• establish methods for land-based nursery culture of sunray venus clams,
• compare field culture methods for nursery and grow-out of sunray venus clams
• determine salinity and temperature preference of nursery and grow-out sized sunray venus seed clams
• evaluate shelf-life and “degritting” of live product,
• examine alternative markets for a shucked meat product, and
• characterize the economics for culturing sunray venus clams.