![]() “We get it up to a certain size and then hold it by bringing down the temperature and feeding it in a certain way to maintain health but not grow very fast.” “We try to grow them at least six weeks at that warm temperature and it puts us starting to spawn the first couple of weeks of February.” There is a three to four week period where they are stock-piling seed Congrove explains. Every 48 hours we retain the larvae, drain and fill the tanks and put the larvae back in.”īroodstock comes in from ABC at VIMS in November and after a false winter of 30 days at 2 or 3☌, the animals are gradually warmed up to 23☌. “We actually keep the animals from day 0 through to day 6 in static culture. “We kept backing up how soon we put the animals into high density flow-through system and found six days to be kind of the sweet spot.” Congrove says. They saw terrible returns and poor quality larvae the first week after hatch. “What we have found is that virginica really hates going into the continuous system early in the larvae cycle.” “Hatcheries that work with gigas (pacific oysters) can incubate the eggs and put them into continuous flow 48 hours later,” says Congrove. “He put together a great hatchery for us, well designed and well though out.”īut some of the protocols are different. “We worked with consultant Jim Donaldson from the west coast when the hatchery was built,” says Congrove. It’s a single-pass-through system but with some “hybridization,” Congrove explains. Salinity runs 16-18ppt most of the time.Ī 400,000btu boiler warms the up-to-200lpm flow and a heat recovery system retains about 80% of that heat. River water flows gently through a narrow channel between the island and the mainland and then mixes in with the tidal waters of Milford Haven. The hatchery is in a commercial warehouse that sits on a 100-year-old wharf at the mouth of the Piankatank River, on the eastern side of Chesapeake Bay. ![]() Mike Congrove was hired to build and run the facility – Oyster Seed Holdings, the only independent oyster hatchery in Virginia. He would take product for his growout operations but there would be lots left over to sell. Shores and Ruark Seafood owner Rufus Ruark Jr., put together a hatchery company in 2008. The Aquaculture Genetics and Breeding Technology Center (ABC) at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) was providing larvae and seed, but there wasn’t enough and independent growers were having to buy out of state. ![]() He was supporting small growers to improve their spat-on-shell production. After completing his Masters degree, Mike Congrove worked as an extension agent for a shellfish trade association on America’s eastern seaboard.
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