A promotion video shot at my place

[Josh]

Yes! Very right Lisa. The pearl grows inside of the pearl sack (which is created by the introduction of a bit of mantle from a donor oyster) which is located in or very close to the gonad (yeah, I know, oww right?) of the oyster that will produce the pearl.
You are right in saying that salt water, with enough time, will damage mother of pearl and hence pearls too. I wear pearls, or at least a pearl anyway, and I can tell you though, that you can spend an awful lot of time in the ocean before needing to worry about damaging your pearl(s).

 

[lisa c]

Yes! Very right Lisa. The pearl grows inside of the pearl sack (which is created by the introduction of a bit of mantle from a donor oyster) which is located in or very close to the gonad (yeah, I know, oww right?) of the oyster that will produce the pearl.
You are right in saying that salt water, with enough time, will damage mother of pearl and hence pearls too. I wear pearls, or at least a pearl anyway, and I can tell you though, that you can spend an awful lot of time in the ocean before needing to worry about damaging your pearl(s).

Oh, I was sure you knew what you were talking about, since you're in salt water all the time. I just had to clarify in my own mind that salt/fresh water wasn't constantly washing over a pearl directly during formation.

I haven't completed reading all the past forums, but there was mention of using 'bad' pearls to nucleate new, hopefully better pearls. The result would be all nacre, and someone asked what would be the downside of that. The only thing I can think of is if the good layer is so thin it wears off fast (whatever 'fast' is) and you're left with the 'bad' pearl showing through. Sound right? Anything else you can think of that would be a downside?

 

[Josh]

If you were culturing your pearls in French Polynesia and you planned to export legally (which we recommend) you would aim for a minimum nacre thickness on your pearls of .8mm and probably a maximum of 1.5mm. Just to reiterate it for those who are new here, Tahiti has a .8mm minimum nacre thickness per pearl so if you were using crumby pearls for nuclei, you wouldn't likely have to worry about the "good" layer being too thin. The problem with using a lousy pearl to seed an oyster is that if it was lousy it probably would have pits. Pits are no good because they make good homes for bacteria and other nasties that could cause trouble later on in the development of the pearl. Nuclei are relatively cheap too so unless they get really, really expensive overnight, the cost of readying bogus pearls for the operation will most likely stay the second option of the two.

 

[lisa c]

Thanks, Josh! New info is so cool, and I appreciate the time you took to explain.