Salt water lettuce from mussel shells

Chill

Seasons Greetings
Jun 16, 2005
386
0
16
Newfoundland, Canada
Has anyone ever heard of this:

"I have just read something in the Baensch's Marine Atlas that seems a little ....ummmm....unusual. Can someone comment on this, or say whether they have any experience of this at all ? it states that you can take live oysters, or blue mussels ( eat the meat yourself ) but take the shell and put it into a tropical Marine Aquarium. That by doing so you may propagate saltwater lettuce as the shell is very likely to contain the spores of this marine plant. obviously you cannot cook the shellfish in its shell without killing the plant spores.....but as oysters and mussels are both coldwater species are the spores and creatures found on them likely to survive in warmer water conditions ?"
 
Sea lettuce, or ulva, can be quite hardy and adaptable, tolerating brackish water as well as full salt water, It does very well in polluted areas, and has grown well in my tanks when they have had issues with high nitrate and phosphate. Doesn't seem to do well under conditions of low nutrients.

The taxonomy seems tobe a bit of a mess at this point with one supposedly cosmpolitan species (U. lactuca) now divided into a bunch. I have no idea what that will mean about Canadian ulva surviving in a tropical tank. You might want to ship some shellfish up from the gulf.

Interesting idea, though.
 
AquariaCentral.com