Maritime Technologies
Contact Person: Dipl. Biol. Matthias Brenner, Prof. Dr. Bela H. Buck
Related Projects: Feasibility Studies, Roter Sand, Offshore Aquaculture, MytiFit, River Jade
Spat collector
In a testing area near Nordergründe (Project MytiFit), 17 nautical miles off the coast from the city of Bremerhaven, three test moorings with large buoyancy (see Fig. 1 & 2) were deployed to test the overall health of the mussels, regarding the loads of micro and macro parasites, the shell stability, the attachment strength of mussels using different artificial substrates and its lysosome membrane stability of the digestive gland cells as an indicator of the energy status of the mussel in different water depths. Collectors of different style and surface material (see Fig. 3) will be fixed to ferrules around the body of the buoy to develop an optimized mussel collector for the rough hydrodynamic conditions in the German Bight. This will be realized in cooperation with the local fishing gear producer Engel-Netze.
In the project Offshore-Aquaculture, various test-moorings (Fig. 4, see also German Bight map) were deployed at offshore sites in order to test the feasibility of planned offshore wind farms as a hart substrate for mussel, oyster and seaweed cultivation. The mooring was designed for the grow out of mussels, oysters and kelp, to test the settlement success and the infestation of parasites.
Fig. 2: Test buoyancy is brought to ship
Fig. 1: Test buoyancy with deployed spat collectors
Fig. 4: Offshore spat collector as mooring system for harsh environments (Buck et al. 2005, see below)
Fig. 3: Different types of spat collectors ready to be fixed to test buoy (Brenner et al. 2007, see below)
References:
Brenner, M., Buck, B. H., Koehler, A. (2007). New concept combines offshore wind farms, mussel cultivation, Global Aquaculture Advocate 10(1) 79-81.
Buck, B. H., Thieltges, D. W., Walter, U., Nehls, G., Rosenthal, H. (2005). Inshore-offshore comparison of parasite infestation in Mytilus edulis: Implications for open ocean aquaculture, Journal of Applied Ichthyology 21(2): 107-113.