Forget COVID: Meet the couple fleeing a disease you've probably never heard of

Rob and Tegan Redmayne run East Coast Oyster Nursery in Port Stephens and arrived in Batemans Bay three weeks ago seeking the safe waters of the Clyde river to establish a new nursery.

The couple have been growing oysters for more than 10 years, and specialise in farming spat - oyster larvae - which they sell to oyster farmers across Australia.

Growing spat is a work-intensive and specific task, requiring different equipment and processes to oyster farming. Oyster farmers buy spat which they then grow to maturity and sell on market as oysters.

Mr Redmaybe said business was thriving and the business was shipping spat to oyster farms along Australia's east coast. Then QX arrived.

QX is a seasonal disease effecting Sydney rock oysters and, while safe for human consumption, kills the majority of oysters in an infected farm. However, there is a strand of Sydney rock oyster resistant to the disease. Each year, the disease kills approximately 30 per cent of resistant oysters in a farm. QX was found among Port Stephens' oyster farms in late August 2021.

The waters of Port Stephens were, in an instant, infected waters.

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"Everything was quarantined in Port Stephens," Mr Redmayne said. "You couldn't sell to outside because you don't want to ship the virus around the state."

Mr Redmayne said QX in Port Stephens could potentially decimate the national oyster industry.

"If all your product can only stay in Port Stevens, then there's a great vacuum of stock, and that's not a great outcome for the rest of industry," he said.

QX is seasonal and occurs around March. Sydney rock oyster spat takes three years to mature to an age where the Redmayne's are able to sell them to farmers. Any spat they sell would have to survive three years of QX risk.

"30 per cent stacked on 30 per cent each year - your mortalities really start to build up," Mr Redmayne said.

"You have to have a lot of product to get a decent crop at the end of it."

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The couple started looking elsewhere, for locations outside the quarantine area where they could move their nursery system, remain viable and still supply spat to farmers nationally.

They settled on the Clyde three weeks ago, with plans to start a spat nursery entirely from scratch.

The couple are not yet operational, and are hoping to start receiving infant spat from Victoria or Tasmania in the next fortnight. Once the spat arrive, the job becomes incredibly laborious.

"It is a seven day a week job," Ms Redmayne said. "You have to be watching them and cleaning them every single day."

The nursery will grow spat until they are four to eight millimetres, before shipping them off to farmers. The process takes approximately five months. The couple will have to learn an entirely new environment for growing oysters on the Clyde compared to Port Stephens, but they said they looked forward to the challenge.

Most of the spat grown at their nursery on the Clyde will be shipped up and down the east coast to other farmers; they will send the remaining stock to their farm in Port Stephens, where Mr Redmayne's dad continues to farm.

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"By shipping them back to Port Stephens they miss that initial hit of QX," Mr Redmayne said. "It means 30 per cent less mortalities in the first season."

The couple are not sure how long they are committing to the south coast, but so far have been taken by the area. They enjoy having an office on the banks of the Clyde river, being able to surf after a day's work, and join in the community of oyster farmers helping build a thriving industry in Batemans Bay.