thudpucker said:
Getting the Salt water in (and out) sounds like something that can be done with a big PVC pipe series.
Or some Ceder fencing made into a Water sluice pipe.
Is that possible?
Clams and Oysters do well in slowly moving water.
You might check with your F&G about this. It's probably been discussed in the past.
Well, I know all the local officers with DNR and the Dept of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), so, I've consulted with them on some of these things. It's my understanding that if the pond is actually connected to the creek with a pipe, weir, etc.....then the state of SC has control over that body of water. With my pond, it would pretty much have to be a closed system, because of the distance between me and the creek.
The issue is that there is a road between me and the creek. Granted, it's a dirt road, but that makes it worse....if I tried to bury a pipe, surely, the idiot on the motor grader would clip it. Not a problem to hard-plumb a line with a quick connect fitting at the street, going through my yard, to my pond....but going from the yard, across the street, and then across the neighbor's yard to the creek, is a problem.
Although he said he wouldn't mind me laying a hose across his yard when I needed to do water changes, that's a lot of 2 inch hose to have to lay out and wind up. And as sure as I do, a dozen tourons will ride through the neighborhood, rubber-necking, running over the hose laid across the road.
Maybe one day I will figure out the logistics of how to do it, but for now, I'll stick with my bream and rainbow trout.
As for clam and oyster mariculture, I'm quite familiar with that, it's part of the work I do at one of my numerous jobs.
Right now, we're experimenting with bamboo poles in some back drains in the marsh, documenting spat growth on the poles compared to growth on used oyster shells, in the hopes of convincing my boss that we need to stop wasting money on planting oyster shells with a giant barge, and instead, obtain bamboo poles, where the oyster harvesters can take them out in small boats and place them in precise locations, instead of the random, spray-and-pray method of planting shells, which is really a piss-poor method.
Anyhow, we took video of putting out the poles, and will continue to take video from time to time, to document the progress. Once we have some growth documented, I'll be posting the video to my youtube channel, as well as showing it to my boss, to show him a clarifying example of what I've been trying to explain to him for the past 2 years.
"Blade", or cluster oysters, prefer slower moving water, they grow on mud flats and in back drains where they are protected from current. But the single 'rock oysters' as we call them, often grow in areas of current, near the low water mark.
In general, oysters seem to fare a little better when there are high levels of sediment or algae. Along the banks of my channel, there are oyster mounds a foot and a half high, and that's from the sediment that I kick up as I'm going in and out of the channel at low tide, it's like miracle grow to the oysters.
They previously were not growing in my channel like that, until about 10 years ago, when I started blowing it out with prop wash. I keep adding wire racks, crab pots, used oyster shells, and anything else I can, along the banks, trying to establish more beds. But not for harvesting, as my channel is an area closed due to pollution, unfortunately.
Instead, I'm establishing the beds in my channel for erosion control, and as habitat for fish, etc. And so far, it's working. About 2 summers ago, I almost caught a 4 pound trout with my jet ski, coming in at dead low tide. He didn't have anywhere to go, except to the side of the "ditch", which is only about 2 feet deep at low tide, and when he did, he ran up into some shallow water, where I saw his back come out the water. I jumped off the ski and tried to grab him, but he slipped through my hands. #-o That's no tall tale about the one that got away either, that really happened.
As for clams, they seem to prefer the deepest water in drains, and generally prefer a sand/washed shell type of bottom, especially where the washed shells have been broken down into almost a coarse sand.
On a side note about growing clams, I've held 1 million clams at one time, in just 2 bags (they were baby clams, being grown out in an upweller system)
