Batavia Coast Maritime Institute TAFE College, Geraldton.
Overseen by Curtin and UWA

Since 2002 it's become evident that the extent of the continuation of EMS, which is not species restricted and not area restricted, has become a phenomenon throughout the world. Since it is not species related it is not a disease. Normal water quality measures are not showing abnormalities. 

 

In the 18 years of experience the in using of The Water Cleanser (TWC), it has been demonstrated by many end users that TWC has provided assistance in the overall health and survival of shellfish and crustacean between 100 and 1000%. As such, there is a need for us to further understand TWC by investigating its properties at microbiology and molecular level. We hypothesized that TWC has the ability to convert certain nutrient that is naturally inconsumable into a product that can be consumed by the shellfish and crustaceans. For example, Nitrate and Phosphate are known for their inconsumable and consumable forms.  As a result, this study is aimed to understand the fundamental mechanism of TWC in converting the non-consumables to consumables, which ultimately assist the health and survival of both shellfishes and crustaceans. 

 

Glucosamine 

Glucosamine is required for bone and shell structure formation; in water, the natural form of glucosamine is known to be inconsumable by shell fish and crustaceans. To date, the microorganism, such as bacillus, is known to be capable of converting the inconsumable glucosamine into a consumable product available for the marine animals when they consume the bacillus. J. Bacteriol. April 1982 vol. 150 no. 1 8-15, GlnR (Schreieret al,1989).

 

However, the microorganism that has the ability of processing the glucosamine in the water has never been assessed. We hypothesize that water pollutions may disturb the microbiota and reduce the amount of microorganism that has the ability in processing the glucosamine required for the growth of the shell fish and crustaceans. Such restriction in accessing the consumable glucosamine would ultimately increase stress on the animal through its growth phase and lead to death.

 

Hypothesis of hatchery choice

Three hatcheries in Western Australia have been assessed for their ability to produce successful shell fish breeding programs, there a location for natural bacillus promoting stimulants which will allow us to provide the results required to show the transformation of inconsumable glucosamine to consumable glucosamine by bacillus for shellfish growth and development.

 

Hatchery 1)
Oyster Creek Hatchery Carnarvon
This hatchery is by far the most successful hatchery at producing shellfish with the worst water quality. Based at the end of a mangrove creek system their water must be settled for 48 hours before being filtered into the Hatchery. 
We hypothesized that this hatcheries' success is based on; mangroves naturally promote bacillus

Hatchery 2)
Redcliff Bay Blue Lagoon Pearls, Monkey Mia
This hatchery is an on water pontoon hatchery based directly over sea grass with average water quality. It was highly successful at producing shellfish until the 2012 heat wave event that killed the sea grass within the Eastern Golf area and under the pontoon, from then they have not been able to produce shellfish.
We hypothesized that this hatcheries' success was based on healthy sea grass beds which naturally promotes bacillus.

Hatchery 3)
Batavia Coast Maritime Institute TAFE College, Geraldton.
Since it's construction over 12 years ago this hatchery has never been able to produce shellfish but has good water quality.
We hypothesized that this hatchery is positioned in an area with no natural promotion of bacillus with no sea grass or mangrove systems within the vicinity to naturally promote bacillus.

 

Due to Hatchery 3's history of failed attempts of shellfish breeding and no known natural bacillus stimulation within its area, we are going to conduct the first trial in Batavia Coast Maritime Institute Geraldton

Application

10 x TWC blocks with pre seeded bacillus biofilm one week prior to shell fish breeding to be placed into spawning tank. The 10 TWC blocks are to be transferred daily into the clean tank with the shell larvae. 

We hypothesize the bacillus on TWC will make consumable glucosamine available for the shell larvae to complete development.