Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Grass Shrimp Info

I was asked to look at a guys 8 acre BOW last Friday. We augured holes across the pond in a checker pattern. DO readings, depth, and bottom evaluation. Every hole we augured a dozen or more shrimp would fall onto the ice. All DO reading were below 2ppm so no fish in this BOW

1) Do these shrimp have real commercial value for him?

2) With a BOW that has an established fish population how difficult is it to get shrimp established?

Sorry if this hijacks your thread TJ. Please move it if it detracts!!

MNFISH2, at least to many on this forum, shrimp that can tolerate cold water (stay vigorous in the conditions you found them under the ice) there is a quite an interest for them.

We would love to see pictures to get an ID on them. Did you happen to take pictures or would it be hard to get the pond owner to drill some holes and get pictures?

Again, he or someone else would have to face the challenge of harvesting at will, in numbers that folks want, then store, package, and ship. This time of year shipping would be easier as temps are cool. Harvesting large quantities through ice may or may not be easy. I have no experience there.

I believe unless you have lots of established vegetation the shrimp may struggle to get established. But with adequate vegetation they have places to hide. They can move remarkably fast. There are a few on the forum with experience with them living in a small aquarium with predators (sunfish, perch) and they managed to find places to hide and avoid being a meal.

If his 8 acre lake has little fish then at least the sorting part would be fairly easy.

If he has thousands upon thousands of them, he certainly could be charging less than a quarter a piece and still be wealthy.

We took no pictures as I really didn't give it much thought until seeing TJ's post last night. I have been reading and discovered,that once again, the subject is way over my head. I have heard them called by so many names but never gave it much thought. After reading and searching I believe (90% confident) they were Gammarus lacustris, Scuds.

This 8 acre BOW will be turned, literally, upside down come this spring with aeration. But before I destroy the current ecosystem, I want to make sure he doesn't have something of value.

Anybody have experience transporting them? They can obviously take low DO. Temp limits?

In fish ponds with established populations of fish, is it possible to get a population established?

I think that many are after PK shrimp, rather than Gammarus which are available elsewhere, but I could be wrong.

Well after a day of reading and a few calls it looks like these little fellas have a love by duck pond owners here in MN. The owner was glad to get all the info. Turns out this region of MN has quite a few BOW that contain these scuds. Fun couple days of learning about this creature!

Scuds are very popular with duck hunters and apparently are stocked as a way to attract ducks. There must be something about ponds in the plain states and MN that attract the Gammarus species. I did stock some in my pond but never saw them again. Probably need correct water quality, hardness, pH, and above all, plenty of cover for them to hide in.

If the pond owner wanted to get in business of selling them they are fairly easy to ship and I think there still would be a market for them as well.

Interesting! I have Gammarus of some kind in my ponds but I see them only in the summer months. I do see Asellus aquaticus (waterlouse) in the winter sometimes by the thousands in the out flow of my pond. I have never in my life seen a PK shrimp but would like to try to establish them.