Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

yep....dim the lights n play some Barry White...oh and dont let em know your watching


sorry.forgot it was serious time lol

Kuda can't find much info in oz, but Google "glochidia" this is the name for larvae, but also the best links I have found are THIS ONE which is from Minnesota US and covers most aspects of mussels, and THIS ONE also US covers reproduction, but what I learned from Aquablue was they spawn in Spring/Summer, mussels have a male and a female, males shoot sperm into the water and the female sucks it in (Interesting Thought), Larvae Mussels need fish to attach themselves to.........but click the above links and it will save me typing the full story.
But as for the right conditions in a nutshell, they have to be healthy well fed and have fish to support the babies

are they protandrous hermaphrodites?

No Jaymie they are born either male or female and don't change

aaawww I thought I might catch you with that one

Good to know, would make it easier to breed them. Are you able to ID each sex on them yet?

Had to Google the protandrous bit but you can't sex them by looking at them, you have to open them, which is only a good idea after cooking, if you have eaten sea mussels you probably notice that some have white meat and some orange, females are orange, same is for the freshwaters as far as I can gather

Wow, OK cool.
In short, they'll breed if they're happy.
If they breed, then the female keeps the babies within her shell until spring.
then they need a fish host to latch onto and feed in a parasitic manner - which is stressed does not harm or inconvenience the fish.

What I couldn't discern, is how big are 'juveniles' or more importantly, how big does the fish host need to be to support a glochidia's growth into a juvenile. I have some White clouds in my pond, that seem to be do well, if they do they will breed like rabbits, but are these big enough for the mussels?

white clouds are small guppy sized live bearers that can handle and even thrive in low temps. They fetch a fair amount at the LFS too, considering how well they breed. they retail at $3.50ea.

Kuda if you look at the reproduction link in post above will give you an idea on size of juveniles, but considering each female can spawn upto 2,000,000, I would suggest they are not very big they only need a host fish for a few days to a couple of weeks, so again I would suggest they are still almost microscopic when they fall off, i have a problem on what host fish to use, if you read my post here
about 4th one down, has a smurf head in it you maybe able to suggest something for me.
Actually found this link after I posted (nothing to do today as pouring rain) http://www.paru.cas.cz/folia/pdf/2-06/0 ... Blazek.pdf is a Czech uni that studies parasites ( I think) but in English (& Latin)

wow....read this last night.....not sure I want to put em into my indoor tank now:

"Freshwater mussels
The larvae (glochidia) of freshwater mussels are parasitic
on fish. They are released into the water by adult mussels
and, when a fish passes close enough to disturb them, the
glochidia attach themselves to the skin or gills of the fish
by means of their barbed valves. Irritated host tissue then
grows and forms a cyst over each glochidium.
Development from glochidium to small mussel takes about
10 weeks, at which time the mussel bores through the cyst,
leaves its host and settles to the substrate.
The presence of a glochidia infestation is indicated by
numerous white or greyish "bladders" on the gills, skin and
fins of the fish. Fish may be severely stress by the
attachment of large numbers of glochidia, particularly
when the infestation affects the gills and may greatly
impair respiration.
Glochidia are able to affect most native species but are notknown to affect introduced species."

Bundy a lot of this info is from overseas and relate to different species of mussels, most are considered pests, but the point of the links are to give an idea of what happens, as all mussels appear to have the same principles, as far as the one's I have, they appear to grow on the fish for a few days and full off, much like a pimple (without the puss) on us, and the same scale (pardon the unintentional pun) compared to us, so if we were scaled down to a fish size the pimple would be sweet FA

ok.....It was found on Victorian Dept. of Primary Industry (Australian) website listed under freshwater parasites........youd think it would relate to Australian fish hey

http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/DPI/nreninf.n ... r_Fish.pdf

sorry, I havent looked at how to do URL links properly on this new forum yet lol

They work a little like this
But seriously, I didn't realize your source, but because of the rain I have had a lot of reading about it, and the species from Aquablue seem to only kling on for 2 - 14 days, but maybe don't have them indoors, try elsewhere first, but man they can clean

Will PM you on how link thing works

So,
Does anyone purge their fish in a separate tank (sump?)?
If so, maybe that would be a good place for the Velesunio ambiguous (providing they don't cause the aformentioned 'pimples'.

BTW, anyone in Canberra thinking of buying some, I would share an order in few months when my system is up.

Ok so where is the best spot to put mussels in a system

FF I just put mine in the tank and spread them around, they sorted themselves out, but some have them in the sump, but I think I have mentioned it before, man they can clean, so best place I reckon is in tank