MECHANIZED OYSTER Crassostrea virginica SETTING USING THE SEA CRADLE

Texas House Bill 1300 was passed in 2019 to support Texas oyster mariculture​ which can bring in between $70 and $90 million to the state .  Traditional oyster culture methods include rack and bag and floating cages, however, the Lower Laguna Madre  (LLM) is unique in contrast to the rest of Texas​ because of its shallow depths (average 3 ft). Therefore, traditional oyster farming is no t viable in the Laguna ​.

An alternative method for the LLM uses  concrete string but the s tring method  is currently inefficient due to oysters forming clumps . To increase the efficiency of uniform setting, l arvae  are hypothesized to set evenly through rotational motion and further, more larvae will set on strings due to the agitation caused by the rotation ​. A mechanized system with constant rotation,  called the Sea Cradle was  conceptually  designed  in Solid Works (Figure 1) to test this hypothesis.

In the building process, a sub-assembly to evenly coat string​ with cement was made,  which greatly alleviated the messy and inefficient coating done without the sub-assembly (Figure 3). A prototype for a 3 ft long aquarium was built and tested (Figure 2).