So the first step in building the oyster reef (cultches), and to simulate it as accurately as possible is to match up oysters with matching halves. There are two ways to do this, the first is to shuck oysters, clean them out, and then glue them back together (saving the meat as future fish food). The second method is to gather oyster shells from restaurants and such (of course, with permission), and then go through them and match them up. It is a very tedious process, but can be done while watching TV. My family was somewhat annoyed by this because when you try and match them, the clacking sound is annoying, and it's not exactly a clean process. Oyster shells can be pretty dusty and dirty, not good for living room furniture
. I made sure to cover the furniture and sweep up after every work session on the reef.
But, before you can match them up, you have to separate the two types of shells (left or lower shells, and right or upper shells).
In Paul S. Galtsoff's 1964 publication (The American oyster,
Crassostrea virginica), he observed the following, "In C. virginica the left valve is almost always thicker and heavier than the right one. When oysters of this species are dumped from the deck of a boat and fall through water they come to rest on their left valves."
The left/lower shells most of the time tend to curve to the right when looking at the open side, while the right/upper shell curves to the left when viewing it open. But wait a minute...To make things more confusing, oysters don't always follow their own morphology rules. There are times when they don't curve at all, or now and then, you find some that curve the wrong way!
So, as I matched them up, I used big rubber bands to keep them together until I went back and glued them later.
Matching them up and keeping them together until time to glue:
After going through a ton of shells, I matched up 37 oysters. I found a few later on too, not sure how I missed them. I added another 30 oysters that were perfect matches that I bought from Wegman's. I'm not going to show pictures of the shucked ones or that process...they're still a bit stinky
So the next steps are pretty basic, wet the halves and glue them together with Gorilla Glue. Now, this is the first time that I've used Gorilla Glue, and I've read and heard about how it expands, and let me tell you that even if you clamp it, it will expand, so use sparingly. I later learned that it's great for filling gaps, but the trick is to keep it from moving from that gap while it's wet.
