Reef Aquarium Equipment Blog

During the week of November 12-17, 1987, staff and trainees from the MMDC Giant Clam Hatchery in Palau exported 3,000 captive-bred specimens of the threatened species Tridacna derasa (mean shell size 9.4 cm or 3.6 inches) to American Samoa as part of a regional reef stocking and conservation program.

This video shows a team of four clam hatchery workers, Theofanes Isamu and Tom Watson of the MMDC, Esaroma Ledua of Fiji and Lee Hastie of Scotland. They are packing 1,500 clams for export on November 12, 1987. A second shipment of 1,500 similar-sized clams was made to American Samoa on November 17. Both shipments arrived in American Samoa with negligible mortality en route and were planted on the reefs there in protective wire mesh cages.

Today, 23 years later, Tridacna derasa is the most popular giant clam species in the US saltwater aquarium trade because of its hardiness, nice color and wide availability. All or nearly all of the T. derasa specimens entering the trade are captive bred, a complete reversal of the situation in previous decades when all of the specimens of this species sold in the aquarium trade were wild caught.

The MMDC Clam Hatchery staff trained individuals from all of the main islands in Micronesia and subsequently extended the training to participants from Fiji, the Samoan Islands, the Marianas, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, Hawaii, the mainland USA and Europe. Within a decade of MMDC’s original clam farming breakthroughs in the early 1980’s, nearly all of the main islands in Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia had initiated some form of giant clam hatchery, village nursery program or both. Additional clam farming programs were estabished in Australia, the Philippines, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Okinawa.

Not since the inception of pearl oyster farming in the tropical Pacific over a hundred years ago has any sea farming technology spread so quickly and widely in this region.

The retail value of the 1,500 clams shown in this video, if sold in today’s (2010) US aquarium market, would be $45,000 at the going rate of $30 per 3-inch clam. The retail value of the 3,000 clams exported by the MMDC that one week in 1987 would be a staggering $90,000 in today’s US aquarium market.

The MMDC’s revenues from sales of cultured giant clam products (seed, meat and shells) from 1990 to 1994 totaled US$745,000. These sales were made to local restaurants, international seafood markets, tourists, other Pacific Island governments, and USA and European saltwater aquarium wholesalers. [This figure does not include foundation grants and contracts generated by the hatchery staff to fund a variety of research projects related to clams and clam mariculture.]

The MMDC staff had extensive early collaboration with government (MIMRA) and private (RRE) clam culture programs in the Marshall Islands. To learn about current clam farming efforts in the Marshall Islands click here:

www.orafarm.com/clams.html

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