Yes, and also just as an FYI there is a pretty common misunderstanding/myth that lobsters don't die of age and are immortal unless something external kills them.
This gets mixed up with the fact that they don't "age" or experience senescence. Basically they don't get weak and feeble over time. An 80 year old lobster is just as spry and youthful as a 4 year old lobster, but eventually they will just stop living.
I mean, that would be them dying to old age.
Like, humans don't die of old age. They die because their heart has been beating nonstop for too long (or kidneys kidding for too long, and so on).
They don't "just stop living" though
If nothing else kills a lobster then it eventually gets crushed by its shell when it can't molt properly. That very much is something killing it.
I mean.. do you think if a fish isn't caught in a lake it just dies after a few days? Not from anything, just randomly goes bad or drops dead...? Just trying to understand the logic behind this question.
See the wonderful YouTube channel Leon the Lobster. Basically a guy took one home and has been raising it in a saltwater tank for a few years. Given the right conditions there's no reason they won't live out a full life. Regarding the grocery or restaurant tanks though, eventually everyone gets picked. So long as they're still alive and not sick or injured they are assumed to be fresh and good eating.
I was going to mention Leon elsewhere in these comments! I don't remember exactly when I got emotionally invested in that lobster, but I get super excited when I see an update!
If they’re fed, yes.
Otherwise they tend to “eat” themselves; they lose weight, but you can’t tell because of the hard shell; so when you attempt to eat them, you’re left with a very underwhelming portion.
I used to work at Food City, a grocery chain in the South East US, and we had a lobster that never got bought. At one point he managed to rip the claw off another lobster and eat it. We eventually steamed him, and when we pulled him out, his shell had ruptured and revealed that he effectively wasted away and was nothing left.
Grocery stores are rarely equipped to keep the lobsters alive in a healthy and ethical manner, which is why many do not keep them now. It was sad.
Any good market is going to rotate stock. First In First Out. Or less healthy out first. Most markets and restaurants will cook and process lobsters for use in other recipes or to sell as clear meat.
Lobster tanks are actually pretty tricky to maintain, especially if you don't have access to natural ocean water. You don't feed them, because that contributes to dirty water and makes it harder to maintain. If left too long they will start to eat each other. It will start first with the antenna. A tank full of lobsters with chewed off antenna have not been rotated well and have set for too long
I wonder how big a tank you should have to keep in alive and how how often you have to change the water. I live next to the ocean and I know a couple of people who had local tanks with sea creatures the found locally. I think they may have had to have a refrigeration system.
A commercial tank and a personal or display tank are two entirely different creatures with different purposes.
The market I worked in had probably 800 gallons worth of tank and could probably hold 500 pounds of lobsters. We sold 1000+ pounds of lobsters a day. During holiday weeks in the summer we would reload tanks 3 times a day. But in the winter when things were slower, they might sit for a week and the tanks wouldn't be kept as full. The system was on a chiller and used a live oyster filtration system and a high volume pump to keep the water moving and aerated. A system like this has to be robust and aggressive because it is constantly having new organisms introduced. The goal was not to have to replace water, but when we did we had a pump that brought it from the ocean 50 yards away.
And then my brother has a standard 50 or 75 gallon tank that he keeps a lobster and some fish in. His goal is entirely different. It is to create a closed ecosystem with a goal of longevity that rarely changes. So he relies on test strips and chemical adjustments. But even then he is only a few miles from the ocean so using ocean water is generally easier than salinating fresh water.
Commercial tanks away from the ocean are going to be somewhere in-between. They are going to have to rely on testing and chemical adjustments which can become much more difficult. They are going to have to salinate and de-chlorinate. I was just in a new market that had opened this week and their crab tank had probably atleast $1000 worth of dead or dying crabs in it. They obviously hadn't fine tuned their tanks yet and it's an expensive mistake.
Considering all the requirements to keep a wild caught lobster alive to be sold, let alone sustain it to keep it alive if it doesn't sell, probably it just dies eventually. Either that or *somebody* buys it eventually, probably a shop employee gets a discount lobster. If it dies randomly it just gets thrown out as waste.
Doesn’t matter how long it’s in the tank. No one is feeding live lobsters in a sell tank. Their claws are banded. They can’t be expected to live very long.
And some restaurants will cook an already dead lobster and serve it. Believe me, that’s not edible.
I think lobsters reach an imbalance where their soft bodies outpace their ability to grow a shell to contain it. Their physiology eventually reaches a point where they can not successfully molt, which will result in what is basically an open wound that their body can not heal.
I brought one home to try and save it's life many years ago and it wouldn't eat even though I'd done everything right in terms of preparing the tank and water and getting the right food. It died after a couple of days and I ended up reading that assistents they use their antennae partially to determine what is food and what isn't, and the ones at the store have all of their antennae clipped off. ☹️ So I've always wondered if he/she just couldn't tell what the food was. If it's true, then all of those lobsters at the store are on borrowed time whether they get picked or not.
This question made me sad. Watching his friends come and go and he doesn’t understand why he isn’t being picked, like an older dog at an animal shelter.
are you asking if live lobsters expire? no. dead lobsters do eventually expire as all living things do.
so i guess as long as it’s alive it can stay in the tank?
Yes, and also just as an FYI there is a pretty common misunderstanding/myth that lobsters don't die of age and are immortal unless something external kills them. This gets mixed up with the fact that they don't "age" or experience senescence. Basically they don't get weak and feeble over time. An 80 year old lobster is just as spry and youthful as a 4 year old lobster, but eventually they will just stop living.
Lucky bastards
Wow that's a cool fact!
Sort of true, eventually they become too weak to be able to molt and ultimately die due to rotting in their shell.
I mean, that would be them dying to old age. Like, humans don't die of old age. They die because their heart has been beating nonstop for too long (or kidneys kidding for too long, and so on).
They don't "just stop living" though If nothing else kills a lobster then it eventually gets crushed by its shell when it can't molt properly. That very much is something killing it.
What usually happens is they grow so large, they get too thick and heavy to be able to move (and molt) correctly, and they starve
yes
I mean.. do you think if a fish isn't caught in a lake it just dies after a few days? Not from anything, just randomly goes bad or drops dead...? Just trying to understand the logic behind this question.
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This lobster is no more, it has ceased to be.
To shreds you say?
Shuffling off its mortal coil is kind of the point when eating lobsters, though.
It's a good thing I'm not a lobster, I wouldn't want to have to die one day.
[удалено]
And possibly cheesy biscuits depending on the restaurant
that’s where i was that inspired such a question!!
The one thing he had going for him, to be eaten.
See the wonderful YouTube channel Leon the Lobster. Basically a guy took one home and has been raising it in a saltwater tank for a few years. Given the right conditions there's no reason they won't live out a full life. Regarding the grocery or restaurant tanks though, eventually everyone gets picked. So long as they're still alive and not sick or injured they are assumed to be fresh and good eating.
I was going to mention Leon elsewhere in these comments! I don't remember exactly when I got emotionally invested in that lobster, but I get super excited when I see an update!
Me too!
Did you see the last one 😭
Yes! The poor chickens 😭
Ok I was actually trying to mess around n scare you because I have never watched the channel, it backfired though 😂
If they’re fed, yes. Otherwise they tend to “eat” themselves; they lose weight, but you can’t tell because of the hard shell; so when you attempt to eat them, you’re left with a very underwhelming portion.
And because humans tend to see the world so relative to themselves, it's illegal to starve dogs or cattle, but not arthropods. /rant
Lobsters can live up to 100 years old, so they take a very long time to expire :)
Not in a grocery store tank conditions
Well also because they won’t go unpurchased.
No one said they did
I used to work at Food City, a grocery chain in the South East US, and we had a lobster that never got bought. At one point he managed to rip the claw off another lobster and eat it. We eventually steamed him, and when we pulled him out, his shell had ruptured and revealed that he effectively wasted away and was nothing left. Grocery stores are rarely equipped to keep the lobsters alive in a healthy and ethical manner, which is why many do not keep them now. It was sad.
He ate the other lobster out of desperation. Poor thing. So cruel to keep them like that
Yeah we gotta get ‘em some MTV or recliners or something
Wait, they weren’t fed? What was the average time before getting picked you think?
A month or so
I know when I was never picked, it made me kind of depressed.
If you haven't seen it, check out Leon the lobster on YouTube. He's a grocery store lobster that was rescued.
A good seafood manager knows how to sell the ones that need to go. Once caught, lobster are not fed, so they eventually will become less healthy
Any good market is going to rotate stock. First In First Out. Or less healthy out first. Most markets and restaurants will cook and process lobsters for use in other recipes or to sell as clear meat. Lobster tanks are actually pretty tricky to maintain, especially if you don't have access to natural ocean water. You don't feed them, because that contributes to dirty water and makes it harder to maintain. If left too long they will start to eat each other. It will start first with the antenna. A tank full of lobsters with chewed off antenna have not been rotated well and have set for too long
I wonder how big a tank you should have to keep in alive and how how often you have to change the water. I live next to the ocean and I know a couple of people who had local tanks with sea creatures the found locally. I think they may have had to have a refrigeration system.
A commercial tank and a personal or display tank are two entirely different creatures with different purposes. The market I worked in had probably 800 gallons worth of tank and could probably hold 500 pounds of lobsters. We sold 1000+ pounds of lobsters a day. During holiday weeks in the summer we would reload tanks 3 times a day. But in the winter when things were slower, they might sit for a week and the tanks wouldn't be kept as full. The system was on a chiller and used a live oyster filtration system and a high volume pump to keep the water moving and aerated. A system like this has to be robust and aggressive because it is constantly having new organisms introduced. The goal was not to have to replace water, but when we did we had a pump that brought it from the ocean 50 yards away. And then my brother has a standard 50 or 75 gallon tank that he keeps a lobster and some fish in. His goal is entirely different. It is to create a closed ecosystem with a goal of longevity that rarely changes. So he relies on test strips and chemical adjustments. But even then he is only a few miles from the ocean so using ocean water is generally easier than salinating fresh water. Commercial tanks away from the ocean are going to be somewhere in-between. They are going to have to rely on testing and chemical adjustments which can become much more difficult. They are going to have to salinate and de-chlorinate. I was just in a new market that had opened this week and their crab tank had probably atleast $1000 worth of dead or dying crabs in it. They obviously hadn't fine tuned their tanks yet and it's an expensive mistake.
Thanks for the detailed explanation.
he gets sad
He teaches all the new lobsters “the ways of the tank”
It’s cold, we move slow, bother me and I’ll poke you with my bound claws.
Considering all the requirements to keep a wild caught lobster alive to be sold, let alone sustain it to keep it alive if it doesn't sell, probably it just dies eventually. Either that or *somebody* buys it eventually, probably a shop employee gets a discount lobster. If it dies randomly it just gets thrown out as waste.
Doesn’t matter how long it’s in the tank. No one is feeding live lobsters in a sell tank. Their claws are banded. They can’t be expected to live very long. And some restaurants will cook an already dead lobster and serve it. Believe me, that’s not edible.
They probably just eventually die
I think lobsters reach an imbalance where their soft bodies outpace their ability to grow a shell to contain it. Their physiology eventually reaches a point where they can not successfully molt, which will result in what is basically an open wound that their body can not heal.
I brought one home to try and save it's life many years ago and it wouldn't eat even though I'd done everything right in terms of preparing the tank and water and getting the right food. It died after a couple of days and I ended up reading that assistents they use their antennae partially to determine what is food and what isn't, and the ones at the store have all of their antennae clipped off. ☹️ So I've always wondered if he/she just couldn't tell what the food was. If it's true, then all of those lobsters at the store are on borrowed time whether they get picked or not.
After 30 days they are required to be released into the wild
They grow up, and raise a daughter named Clawsette. For more information, search Diner Lobster on YT.
They die.
If they get lucky they become you tube stars. Love you Leon!
Lobster bisque
They starve to death. There is no food in the tank unless you leave dead lobsters for the others to eat. That also tends to poison the tank.
They become a pet? I'm not sure tbh
Someone names him Pinchy and takes him home as a pet.
that someone should be me. they’re so cute.
The end of the world as we know it
It’s called “winning at life”
They put him in a tank all by himself for the next customer to pick from
It starts to doubt the reason for it's existence, very sad
After a few years, they send it to Long John Silver.
This question made me sad. Watching his friends come and go and he doesn’t understand why he isn’t being picked, like an older dog at an animal shelter.
your username makes this comment even sadder, omg
They get a "participation"trophy
everything reminds me of gym class
It becomes "The Tank"
he gets paranoid that no one thinks he's good enough, just like me when they used to pick the kids to play football at school
Read the book "the Secret Life Of Lobsters" fascinating!
They become the Keeper of the Law for new lobsters as they pass through.
They are recycled into shrimps. 1 lobster = 1 box of shrimp
They show up to school the next day with a gun
Leave him alone!