bop lifecycle panels

Cylindrical tanks

1

Larvae growing a foot.

3

2

Each female produces 10 to 25 million

eggs per spawning.

Female

4

Sunlight

CO²

The Perfect Oyster

Farm RaisedOyster

Wild Oyster

Transfer the male and female gametes to the larvae tanks for fertilization.

Up to 20% –hopefully

90%– will be successfully

fertilized

Male

20°C

BILLION OYSTER PROJECT LIFECYCLE STAGE 1

After 2–3 weeks of growth larvae develop a foot and begin active locomotion insearch of a permanent place to settle. The biggest larvae are filtered out and transferred to remotesetting tanks.

Oyster larvae spend approximately 2 weeks in the feeding tank. Algae is continuallyadded in precise amounts to maintain a steadily increasing food supply for the developing oyster larvae.

Hey, how’s your algae culture?

Oysters eat algae – in this case three species of phytoplankton. Algae is cultured using only sunlight, starter culture, and small amounts of nutrient solution (mineral).

The first step in the hatchery process is to grow oyster food.

Algae culture is very delicate. If you don’t monitor carefully your algae culture can collapse.

Hi, I’m pouring some nutrient solution!

And now we have hundreds of millions of larvae!

Thirdly, you need to trick the oysters into thinking it’s spring by increas-ing the water temperature and adding some pre-harvested gamete. Then voila the oysters start spawning en mass!

Secondly, you need to choose what kind of oysters you want to breed.

Hello, ready to grow some oysters?

Pre-harvested gamete.

SAMPANEL_v2.indd 1 5/23/14 4:14 PM


Hey, restaurant goers!Did you know oysters will settle on nearly any hard surface. However they prefer the chemical and physical composition of oyster shell. Importing oyster shell for this purpose is too expensive therefore a major part of the BOP is to collect spent shell from local restaurants.

BOP shell recycling program operates weekly collecting several tons of mixed shell from restaurants all across New York City.

Now off to the Governors Island!

Please throw the shells inthe collecting bin, sir!

It’s smelly!

Once the shells are collected they are brought back to our outdoor curing facility on Governors Island.

Curing takes at least six months of exposure to the elements and periodic turning of piles. At the end of the curing period, shells are washed and prepared for remote-setting tanks.

I like oysters too!

Thanks EARTH MATTER for helping us run the shell recycling program!


Stacks of Mesh Bags

Stack of Trays


Remote setting is the process of adding millions of lab-grown larvae to large dockside tanks filled with seawater and substrate.

First we wash thecured, recycled oyster shell reclaimed from local restaurants.

Shells are held in place in the tanks using mesh bags, plastic trays, or metal cages.

After a few days, larvae quickly settle and attach ourselves permanently to shell surface.

10–40% of the larvae added to the tank will successfully settle and meta-morphose into oysters.

Each tank holds up to 50 thousand re-cycled shells with a total of more than 2.5 million individual oysters after the set.

Any larvae that have not set on shells after two days are filtered out using a sieve and added back to a tank that is still undergo-ing setting. Once a tank is fully set then the pumps are switched to recirculation mode.

Larvae come from the Harbor School’s hatchery or can be imported from other commercial shellfish hatcheries in the Northeast.

Now we are spat-on-shell!


CSO (Combined Sewer Outfall)

juveniles

juveniles

adults

adults

Mushroom Anchor

Large Mooring Buoy

Spat-on-shell oysters of various sizes in tray.

Cage goes 2 ft. under water


The Governors Island eco dock nursery has anapproximate capacity of 750,000.

There are up to 250 balls with stack of 4 trays hanging below.

Navy Yards currently contains approximately 750,000 oysters and has a capacity for up to 2 million.

Secure your cage with marine line and a back up steel cable. Let me show you how to tie a bowline knot!

After approximately 2 weeks in the remote-setting tanks baby spat-on-shell oysters are ready to be transferred to nursery trays and garden cages.

Harbor School operates two large scale oyster nurser-ies, one in the Brooklyn Navy Yards and one on the eastern shore of Governors Island.


Green can buoy

3–4 knot current

Oyster condos

Reef castles

Reef balls

6ft.

spat-on-shell

rock

clam shell

shallow water level

4ft.

GI Reef Science Platform

CONSTRUCTED REEF STRUCTURES, REEF BALLS AND OYSTER CONDOSSPAT-ON-SHELL AND SUBSTRATE MOUNDS MULTI-SPECIES RESTORATION


The simplest reef construction technique is the “layer cake” approach; made by placing piles of rip-rap (rocks) on the bottom, a layer of cured shell in the middle, and a final “icing” of spat-on-shell oysters on top.

Unfortunatelymost of NY Harbor is characterized by conditions of high energy and highsedimentation.

This technique works well in low energy environments where waves and tidal energy will not blow the new oysters off into the surrounding muck.

One approach to ensuring oysters remain in place on the bottom in high energy environments is to build large metal frames (called “oyster condos”) that can contain thousands of spat-on-shell and are themselves habitat generating structures.

Multi-Species Restoration! This is the most comprehen-sive technique. Historically, New York Harbor was covered in more than 200 square miles of oyster reef, but oyster reef did not exist by itself. It was the middle tier of a complex ecological edge with salt marsh above and sea grass meadows below.

Whenever possible we try to recreate this environ-ment. Where the shoreline is already softened or natu-rally eroded, marsh grass (Spartina) can be planted upland of oyster reef struc-tures. And if the bottom is sandy enough, Eelgrass (zostera Marina) can be planted below the reef structures.

Oyster condos are large metal frames built from welded rebar and wire mesh sleeves or plastic trays that can contain thousands of spat-on-shell.

Reef castles and reef balls are made of specially compounded concrete with a lower pH closer to seawater. Reef castles and reef balls are seeded with oyster larvae in remote setting tanks then placed on the bottom as miniature reefs.

Directly adjacent to the reef is a science platform that collects water quality data in real time and monitors the effects of reef

restoration. The platform consists of a 1200-lb. cement block with 3 instruments attached and cabled to the surface: the YSI water quality sensor, the Son-Tec current profiler, and the VIB live streaming webcam. The data are then transmitted wirelessly to a hosted database and publicly accessible web interface.

Gov

erno

rs Is

land

2m

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Now, the most important part, rebuilding self-sustaining oyster reefs...

This complex marine ecosystem provides habitat and food for thousands of species, continuous water filtration for the Harbor, and a natural buffer against storms.


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