Development of Crassostrea belcheri (Sowerby, 1871), Crassostrea iredalei (Faustino, 1932) and inter-specific cross spats at different salinity

Hybrids between Crassostrea belcheri (CB) and C. iredalei (CI) were produce to evaluate their aquaculture potential. These inter and intra-specific crosses consisted of CB♀XCB♂, CI♀XCI♂, CB♀XCI♂ and CI♀XCB♂. To evaluate their environmental preferences, the spats of 40 day-old were cultured in 10, 20 and 30 ppt for 30 days. Hybrids showed significantly higher (p<0.05) shell increment when cultured in 20 ppt compared to its parental crosses. Subsequently, a short salinity stress experiment was conducted using spat of 140 day-old in 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 ppt for 10 days. Then followed by the experiment salinity decrements with gradual, intermediate and rapid salinity decrease were carried out on 140 day-old spats for 10 days. In these two experiments, spats of 140 day-old were able to tolerate the different treatments tested evident with the 100% survival for all treatments.