A massive 2 tonne capacity Lobster Pod system is our biggest order yet.

We have recently installed ten Lobster Pod systems to condition brown crab prior to export to the Far East.

Exporting live shellfish can be tricky.  To ensure the best survival rates it is important to firstly grade your stock.  Our systems can maintain great quality and if you have access to the finest live shellfish.  By grading the best quality and then conditioning these animals prior to export you have the best chance of success.

With brown crab especially it is important to have a system which can purge the animals.  As most of you will know for the first 24 hours in a recirculation system brown crabs will produce lots of muck.  This needs to be filtered out of the water and our mechanical and chemical filtration stage deals with this so no particulate remains in the water.  The crabs (and indeed lobsters and langoustine) will suffer from capture stress. This causes a build up of ammonia in their blood.  Depending on how long they have been out of the water and how they have been stored and transported prior to being placed in the Lobster Pod system will determine how much ammonia is produced.  For the first 24 hours they will pass this build up of toxic ammonia into the water.  You need to have a filter with enough biological capacity to process this ammonia into less toxic nitrite then nitrate. Please see our blog on ammonia and the nitrogen cycle for more information http://www.toddfish.co.uk/todds-top-tips-for-ammonia/. If the brown crab can recover from this stress and purge themselves of the ammonia and carbon dioxide that has accumulated in their blood they will be in the best condition and more likely to survive their international flight.  Once the shellfish reach their destination they will again release lots of ammonia that has accumulated in their blood during transit and the seawater system at the receiving destination needs to be able to deal with this as well.  By conditioning your crab (and lobsters) in one of our innovative systems with adequate filtration prior to export you have the best chance of success.

Here are some photos of the filtration system for the 2 tonne capacity Lobster Pods:

Large Scale Lobster Pod Filters

Spider Crabs in Lobster Pod

For more information about storing, conditioning or transporting crustacea please contact Dr Keith Todd on Tel 01383 820685.

Best Fishes,

Errin

Sea-E-O and Founder

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