The hatching crawled out of the capsules over a 58-day incubation period at 21–23 °C. The hatchlings were 3.00–6.04 mm in total shell length and 4.15–21.4 mg
in wet body weight, and could hang upside down the water by their feet. Growth performance of clam-fed post-hatchlings
After the dietary experiment, the clam-fed post-hatchlings had
better performance in terms of total shell length accumulation, wet
body weight increment, and survival rate than those on other diets.
The whelks were continuously provided with the clam diet for an
extra 140d. During the culture, the whelks showed a nearly linear
growth in total shell length (Fig. 5) at an average of 12.64 mm per
month, with an average wet body weight of 29.53 g on 210 DPH. As
the total shell length increased, the wet body weight also increased,
rendering a perfect power function relationship (n=313) (Fig. 6).