Oysters/Pearls

[DoomWeasel]

Ok... my girlfriend absolutley fell in love with my new clam (http://www.raidingwindmills.net/aquapics/td clam.jpg). All of a sudden I see her gears start turning and she asks whether or not I could keep oysters that produced pearls in the tank. I know people do culture pearls, but why don't I see people doing it in home aquaria? Is it possible? I know there are a lot of oysters in Tahiti so I would expect the climate of our tanks to be about right. What do you all think?

 

[ADS]

Black pearl oysters are available to the trade-Adam

 

[DoomWeasel]

so we can raise them in our home aquaria? What is required for success? Anyone konw where I can find more:
1. info
2. actual oysters

thanks

 

[cal3v]

For it to make a pearl a piece of rock or something like that has to get into a special part of the clam and coated by the clam to make a pearl, lol I know thats not too detailed of an explanation but I think it gets the point across. And to get to that area, when pearls are cultured they have to be very carefully opened to not kill them and then cut in the area and a freshwater pearl inserted into the cavity. Also I believe these clams are purely filter feeders and thus would make it difficult if not impossible to have enough particulate matter in the tank to feed them. Sorry to be a downer, I actually liked the idea of pearl oysters in a tank too.

 

[firechild]

....then cut in the area and a freshwater pearl inserted into the cavity

Actually, there are both marine and freshwater pearl oysters. the item that is inserted is a plastic bead.
It is not possible to culture pearls in an aquarium because the bead is first coated by a small piece of tissue from a donor oyster then inserted by a specially trained technician into the gonad of the oyster. Also, the only pearl oysters that are sold are sold only to the pearl oyster industry and they are bought on license making it impossible for aquarists to obtain them.

 

[cal3v]

Thanks for the info Firechild I wasn't sure exactly how things went .

 

[DoomWeasel]

Yeah thanks, Firechild. I did a search on the process last night and found some pretty good links on how they are implanted. However, I do think the process is much more involved than I am willing to take on. And yes, there are different processes for each freshwater and saltwater pearls. Thanks for the replies guys.