tubguy,
I think it would be pretty easy to raise them but i have no experience. I just know that in my pond with no manipulation of my own, hungry predators and almost zero cover they have thrived. I don't have highly controlled water quality or algae blooms or any of the 'proper' conditions, just rain water and street run off going into a hole in the ground. I have thousands of them, and I only put in like 100.
My bet is that since they survive in a wide temperature range that if you started with some PK shrimp and put them in a intex pool with some rocks to attract a little algae, perhaps a little starter culture of some 'green water' from a local pond, and some way to add a little aeration they would do fine. They like to hide under leaves and in vegetation but in my pond they just scuttle around on the clay bottom.
If I had a way to net them out more effectively I'd bring some in this winter and see what they did in my basement over winter. In warmer water conditions I see them in the shallows, often I see them better at night with a flashlight. Now the water is cold enough to produce tilapia floaters and I don't see them anymore.
