Make Money Fast ... the FAQ

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news.interport.net!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!info.ucla.edu!agate!news.ucdavis.edu!rocky!ez041467 From: ez041467@rocky.ucdavis.edu (Erick Oshel) Newsgroups: rec.aquaria Subject: Re: oyster and pearl question Date: 17 Oct 1995 19:02:53 GMT Organization: University of California, Davis Lines: 39 Message-ID: <460ukt$rec@mark.ucdavis.edu> References: <45ucb8$idl@gondor.sdsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: rocky.ucdavis.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]

George Wang (wangg@rohan.sdsu.edu) wrote:

: Hello....I am just curious....is the oyster that produce the pearl the same : kind as the kind that we eat? : if it is do I just put a grain if sand in to the oyster and wait for a few : years?

: I bought 3 big oyster still in its shell from grocery store..and put in : my tank...

To start with your grocery store oysters, I don't know what store you bought them from, and oysters can close their shells and stay alive out of water for a long time, but unless, you bought your oysters at a dockside market, I would be surprised if they lived very long.

Pacific oysters are commercially grown for food near the mudflats of tidal estuaries in the Pacific Northwest. Farmers depend on the ocean tides to bring food particles to the oysters and to bring cold fresh oxygenated water. This being the case, unless, you have a large salt water tank with a chiller, don't expect the oysters to last long.

As you already know, it takes oysters in the neighborhood of five years under ideal conditions until they grow large enough to be of commercial value.

Now to answer your pearl question. Most jewelry grade pearls are made by a different species of oyster (I think from Japan). But pearls are indeed formed by the pacific oyster. If an abrasive piece of sand or shell which has managed to get stuck between the shell and the soft body of the oyster the oyster will secrete mother of pearl around the object to protect itself. Sometimes, this forms a pearl, sometimes just a bump on the shell. So, the sand needs to be between the mantle and the shell, (gills are extensions of the mantle).

All bivalves have the ability to form pearls. There is even a fairly large business of harvesting freshwater mussels for their shells and pearls. If you really want to grow pearls in your tank at home, I'd look into this possibility.

[EOM]