I have a PK shrimp seller who lives maybe 90 minutes away, then I'd drive them another 70 minutes to my BOW.

Anybody done this before? What is the best way to transport them, acclimate them to my BOW, and stock in areas where they have good chance to survive?

When using them for fishing, I saw them in containers with ice at the bottom and spanish moss on top, rather than plain water. But that was for a shorter trip & they were not released in the hopes they'd survive!

I'm assuming that they are best placed in shallow weedy areas, but not even certain of that.

I had some shipped to me in a plastic bag. I assume the air space in the bags were filled with oxygen.

I just tempered them like you would fish to give them time to adjust to temperature and pH changes. Then yes, try to keep them away from predators.

Mine lived because I caught some the next year. But I think they eventually got extirpated because I have not seen any since. I used to catch one once in a while in a minnow trap. They could get through the trap mesh but they would be in there eating the feed and when I pulled it up sometimes one would still be in there.

I probably have better cover for them to survive now than I did when I originally got some.

PK shrimp order

Never found mine again after stocking in a fish-free small pond fed by an artesian well. I originally thought the water killed them off, but later found that GSF made it in during flooding... Added a single LMB to exercise the GSF.

anthropic, would you mind giving the supplier's name?

I caught a bunch of grass shrimp and put them in an ice chest with 3-4” water and drove 160 miles and the sloshing around aeratied them just fine

Thanks for the tips, guys. Hope to pull this off next Saturday.

Al, I'm reluctant to mention the supplier until I can honestly say they deliver what they promise. Not cheap, runs around 50 to 60 cents per shrimp even in quantity, don't want someone to be disappointed. But I will definitely let you know the particulars if it works out, I know a lot of folks here would be interested.

anthropic, I hope I would have done the same. Thanks, and let us know how it goes.

Well, I stocked 1,000 PK shrimp today. Good day to do it, as it was cool in the trunk.

Supplier lives in Monroe, Louisiana area and is willing to either Fed Ex or deliver himself within a reasonable distance. Mostly he sells to people with aquariums who want live fish food, but he's willing to deal with pond owners, too.

Not cheap, even in quantity, but they were in good shape after he drove 80 plus miles to meet me, and arrived in good shape at my BOW another hour after that. I was impressed that he brought some fresh water in a cooler to replace some of the used water in the coolers. He gave me dechlorinated water (chlorinated tap water will kill the shrimp) for my coolers, which I appreciated. He also advised that I stock the shrimp in the weediest areas.

Hopefully the shrimp will survive & eventually reproduce, they are good forage for YOY LMB and BG. Plus they are really cool to look at!

Anth:

Appreciate your efforts to help the forum with a PK Shrimp source, but the person you identify [and I edited] used the forum for personal benefit for quite some time without responding to Lusk requests to discuss advertising on PB. Guy had every opportunity to establish himself as a legit resource for the forum, one that would have served many of us, but decided to disregard the rules - so I stripped his identity and URL from your post. Any questions, feel free to ping.

Sorry, I was not aware of that history. He never said anything about it when I mentioned the Pond Boss forum.

I believe I received some of the last ones shipped out of Nebraska from the super nice folks that used to supply a lot of members here. (Sr moment, not recalling her name).
She sent them in to my US Postal Service. Regular mail. I was out of town, because they came in a day late. My wife took them up to the farm (2 hr drive) after four days of shipping. She thought they looked ok. Followed my brief tutorial on acclimating them. Dumped them and that was it. We didn’t see any for two years. Then my grandkids were trying to net tadpoles along the bank, (I have lots of oak and hickory leaves around the edges of the pond, but little growth) They started seeing lots of them in the nets (Glass Shrimp). This was all near the feeder, which was still working at the time.
They were all full of eggs. So, I’m hoping I still have a bunch. Don’t know why I wouldn’t. I just have even more oak leaves.
My point is, after all that, is that they are pretty tough and resilient. Hope yours do well!

That is encouraging. I got some of those probably from the same time period I think. I have assumed they were extirpated but to tell the truth, I have not really looked for them. I need to do that.

I had almost no plant cover but I do have lots of limestone rocks and from an earlier thread had been told they would hide in rock cover. I do have some spike rush on one side of that forage pond now that would provide cover.

I would be amazed and thrilled if I still had some. Snowing outside right now but supposed to get warmer later this week. Will have to take a small net out or maybe flashlight at night and see if I can find some.

old PK shrimp thread

Please let us know snrub. Like Setterguy I got mine from Carol Fattig when she was still able to provide others with shipments. Mine seemed to do well but now I'm not so sure as my lack of cover (except leaves) and hungry YP, RES and possibly even crayfish could have made them disappear.

I keep hoping!! The last one I saw was 2 falls ago while raking out the FA in the shallows, a big fat one jumped about a foot out on to the shore line. I have tried to keep some FA in the shallows on purpose to provide cover for this reason.

I can't recall if it was scuds or PK shrimp but I know outfits who sell them say they only harvest them through the ice but didn't say why. Perhaps under ice they concentrate in the shallows where warmer water is? Or maybe under ice the vegetation in the shallows keeps the O2 concentration a bit higher and they congregate there?