Zebra Mussels, to scrape off or not??

[T. Bix]

Does anybody KNOW if there would be any ecological or biological impact to simply scraping or brushing these little buggers off of our wrecks as we encounter them? They are an invasive species and an eye sore but if disturbed do they do some sort of accelerated breeding (picture the movie gremlins) or do they float around until they can re-atach? We dived the Michigan side of Lake Michigan this weekend and the Zebra mussels seemed to be thicker on the wreck than last week on the Wisconsin side of the same lake.... BTW: that's simply an anecdotal observation.

 

[flots am]

Does anybody KNOW if there would be any ecological or biological impact to simply scraping or brushing these little buggers off of our wrecks as we encounter them? They are an invasive species and an eye sore but if disturbed do they do some sort of accelerated breeding (picture the movie gremlins) or do they float around until they can re-atach? We dived the Michigan side of Lake Michigan this weekend and the Zebra mussels seemed to be thicker on the wreck than last week on the Wisconsin side of the same lake.... BTW: that's simply an anecdotal observation.

I'm not sure you can actually scrape them off a wooden wreck without removing the layer of wood they're attached to. And if you remove them, you'll just get more.

I'd leave them.

flots.

 

[ajtoady]

That would be an awful lot of scraping!! As flots says, there are more to replace what you remove and damage to the wrecks would be the downside.

 

[T. Bix]

That would be an awful lot of scraping!! .

I'm not talking about completely cleaning the wrecks..... more like brushing them aside to see some equipment or detail.... is it doing more harm than good? I've not noticed that they really have that good of hold on anything that I've brushed them off of but wonder if some marine biologist type would know for sure..... And yes I know that they just come back but from what I've heard the damage to the steel wrecks is something chemically going on between the mussels and the surface they are attached to, whereas the damage to the wooden wrecks is due to the sheer mass of colonies of the little monsters weight breaking the structures down.

 

[rhwestfall]

Where to start??????



...bow of the Dean Richmond



...deck rail of the Indiana......

Lake Erie - Zebra Mussel capital of the world.....

 

[Jared0425]

No you will not damage the wreck if you scrape them off. You may take off paint on some wrecks, but it is usually alright to do so.

 

[flots am]

No you will not damage the wreck if you scrape them off. You may take off paint on some wrecks, but it is usually alright to do so.

In Lake Champlain, that will get you banned.

flots