MUSSEL FARMING

MUSSEL FARMING

• The important genera -are Mytilus and Perna

• The major mussel producing countries - Spain, the Netherlands, France and Italy

• The species cultured : 

Mytilus edulis – the Netherlands, France and Spain
Mytilus galoprovincialis – Italy, Yugoslavia and Russia
Mytilus smaragdinus = Perna viridis – the Philippines.

Mytilus edulis Mytilus galoprovincialis Mytilus smaragdinus

 Life History

• Mussels - filter feed on phytoplankton and suspended organic matter

• Reach sexual maturity in first year

• Spawn with rising temperature in the temperate region and almost throughout the
year in tropics

• Sexes are separate, fertilization external

• Larvae pass through trochophore and veliger stage, both are planktonic

• When they reach a shell length of 0.25 to 0.3mm, after 10-15 days, they attach to
hard substratum such as rocks by means of byssus threads

• They can detach and reattach to different substrates

• They conglomerate and form thickly populated beds on rocks and other
substratum mainly in the sub-tidal areas of the sea
Grow-out

• CMFRI – farming of green mussel Perna viridis - raft culture method

• Rafts - fabricated using wooden/bamboo poles tied together with nylon/coir ropes

• The poles are treated with coal tar to enhance their life

• Raft - 6x5 or 8x8m

• Rafts mounted on 5 empty sealed drums of 200L capacity, painted with anti-
corrosive paint

• Wooden planks are fixed on the raft to provide for working space

• Rafts are anchored in the protected areas of the sea using 3 iron anchors each
weighing 100 kg at a depth ranging from 8-10m in the sea 1-1.5Km way from the
shore

• Ropes with seed attached to them are suspended form the raft for growing to
marketable size
Seed collection
• Seeds - from natural mussel beds
• Cleaned in seawater to remove mud and epifauna
• Size of the seed ranges from 20-30mm
• The seed are secured to nylon/coir ropes by enclosing them
in a knitted cotton cloth of 25cm with and stitching it
around the rope
• 500 to 700 juveniles are attached to each meter of the rope
• Diameter of the coir rope - 20-25mm; nylon rope -14mm
• Lengths of the ropes - 5-8mm
• Seeded ropes are attached 0.5 to 1m apart to the rafts
suspended in the sea
• Seed mussels get attached to the ropes by byssus threads in
2-3 days and the cloth cover disintegrates in about 10 days
Growth and production

• The seeded mussels grow to 36g in 5 months

• Each rope yield about 5.1-12.3Kg/m

• 100 ropes of 6m length in a raft of 8x8m will yield 4800Kg per raft assuming an
average production of 8Kg per m of the rope

Management of rafts

• Collected mussels should be seeded within 24h.

• Periodic inspection of rafts to detect leakage in floats, damage to rafts or ropes

• Farm area should be demarcated with lights and flags to avoid damage by fishing
boats.

• Periodical cleaning and thinning of mussels to improve growth rates

Fouling organisms
• Barnacles attach themselves to ropes and mussels with 30 days of seeding the
ropes
• More fouling takes place in the upper 2 m of the rope
• Heavy fouling by a bivalve Mytilaster arculatula takes place in the months of
November and December
• Other fouling organisms are tubiculous polychaetes, Ascidians, Cnidarians and
Bryozoans
• Should be manually cleaned periodically
 

Predation
• Predation by fish Rhabdosargus sarba
Fouling organisms
• Net enclosures around the rafts will eliminate predation.

Rhabdosargus sarba