How effective are oysters at filtering water?

The quick answer is: VERY!

We conducted a simple, yet illustrative experiment. As you can see from the pictures, mud was placed into two beakers. The control beaker contained no clams and the second beaker contained a group of clams. The elapsed time was recorded and as you can see, the clams completely filtered the water in about 4 hours!

Why oysters?

Oysters filtering ability is ten times more than that of clams. Besides their incredible filtering abilities, oysters are also commercially harvested for sale, same as clams, in the fishmarkets. Incorporating the local fisherman into this project helps bring science to the public and makes them more aware of some of the environmental problems that we face.

What about the Detritus?

Detritus results from the oyster filtering. In a natural system, this detritus would fall to the seafloor to be consumed by benthic fauna like sea cucumbers and sea stars. If a system is stratified and low oxygen waters occur near the bottom, the density of benthic fauna can be drastically reduced. Aeration from the seafloor insures vertical circulation and is a source of oxygen that is available to sustain the benthic creatures even during through the hot summer months.

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