Ok so a few guys on here know I am working on a perch pond. Pellet trained perch were stocked last fall and are growing very well on feed. We have dropped in the pond a solid 10,000 emerald shiners and 2000 fat head minnows. All seem to be doing quite well and feeding on pellet scraps too.

We have added 400 paper shell crayfish to the pond and since then the pond water quality has gotten so much nicer. It is clear and clean.

My question is, is there any benefit of me adding or trying to establish a fresh water shrimp population? There is a trout farm north of me that maybe able to sell me a bunch of these little guys to start the pond off. Water is hard pushing 8. I have a very good rocky shore and the crayfish just love it but I do not have any plants at all.

Could dropping in a few hundred of these fresh water shrimp be all for not and could I be wasting my time and money on them?

I really feel I should try my best to get as much diversity as I can in my pond.

Thoughts? Few pictures of the crayfish, fathead, and bluntnose shiners.

Cheers Don.

That's a very pretty pond you have!

I have really enjoyed working with my freshwater shrimp over the last few years. I have recently been keeping some in an invertebrate only aquarium with scuds. I am amazed at just how smart they are! They see me come in the room and come up to the surface, flip upside down and begin swimming in circles waiting to be fed flakes.

Try to find out what species of shrimp they are... That would be a big help in determining if they would be suitable for your pond.

I don't think your pond has enough weed cover or finely divided structure for the grass shrimp to thrive. Life span of the shrimp is only one year thus the young ones need lots of cover until they grow to maturity and lay eggs for the next generation. A pond near me had lots of shrimp with small pond weed and water lilies. Owner added grass carp who ate all the small pond weed. Grass shrimp disappeared despite some water lilies still present, but the g.carp are now working on the water lilies by mostly just cutting them off.

Thanks for the tips guys. I guess if it was to be an option I would need to get some plant life started in the pond. Really worried about getting a plant that is not easy to control in plants I buy. 99% of the time getting plants from an aquarium store there are snails on them too.


Over the years I have had a few different fresh water aquariums and I have had some glass shrimp. They always found away to jump out and die. Really have to have a very tight top on them and even still if they could they would shoot out where the filter was pouring back into the tank. funny thing is I see my crayfish in the pond jumping at the base of my water fall like they are trying to get up a river. Weird.

Cheers Don.

I wouldn't use aquarium plants, I'd see what plants are growing in ponds or other BOW's near you that you wouldn't mind having in your pond. IMO, aquarium plants wouldn't make it thru your winters, and if they did, they might very well be invasive.

Strongly suggest you heed esshup's advice here Dono.

If you do transfer plants, do the usual due diligence for unwanted hitchhikers.

Another forage species is always desirable, so it will be worth it.

I stocked around 200 that I dip netted from a friend's pond. Though my pond was new and had no plant cover at the time, they established great. By year 3, I could dip net anywhere around the banks and catch as many as 2 dozen per swipe. I net them and use them for bait, and they beat just about all other baits. I find shrimp in the gullets of lots of my BG and BC, and it's common to catch up to 14" LMB on the little guys while fishing for BG.

I have Mississippi grass shrimp (palaemonetes kadiakensis), and would think Canada is at the very edge of their range.

I am looking for a few lily pads and on my ridge I would like to get a lawn of dwarf sagittaria grass going. I have a great deal of pea stone mixed with chips and dust on this ridge to anchor some small pot plugs of them.

Not too worried about the flowers of the lily pads more some shade cover and nothing that will take over the pond. There is a yellow lily pad we see everywhere around here. I don't know if it is an over bearing pad or not.

Cheers Don.

The Yellow Lilypad is more than likely Spatterdock, and can overtake a pond. It can spread quickly.

Look for what are called "Hardy Lilies" they come in all different colors, and usually are listed by water depth that they prefer. They spread a lot less per year, and are what I'd put in a pond.

freshwater shrimp, can they live in southern Indiana

If they have sufficient underwater vegetation, yes.

I see someone is selling freshwater "shrimp" scuds on Ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313&_nkw=scuds&_sacat=0&_from=R40

Can anyone educate me on these guys? What are they and would they live in Ontario?

Cheers Don.

Here are some links to previous discussions that we have had about scuds; aka and commonly called freshwater shrimp by laymen. However they are not really true shrimp as in grass or grass shrimp.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=112888&page=1

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=140120


http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...ite_id=1#000003


http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...ite_id=1#000000

Mostly about freshwater shrimp (Palaeomonetes) not scuds (Gammarus).
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...amp;Search=true



Scuds the genus Gammarus have several species with the largest about 1/2" to 5/8" long. The larger ones survive in cool water, trout habitats or marginal trout water (cool water species) and need vegetation usually some dense vegetation to survive moderate fish predation. Wood a member here had lots of them in his pond in Western Canada - Alberta.
The larger species that Wood had grew well in the pond that had Coontail as the main weed. Places that raise, harvest and sell scuds grow them in fishless ponds.

Hi Don
They are living in all parts ot the world(climate) numerous different species, around here (Norway) you find them in high mountain creeks, streams and lakes all the way up north, in typical good arctic char habitat.
So they would definetly live in Ontario as well
http://www.waterwereld.nu/vlokreefteng.html
http://somethingscrawlinginmyhair.com/2008/04/12/freshwater-amphipod-gammarus/
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92812&page=1

cheers

This scud is a bit larger hehe
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/02...ear-New-Zealand
not a fresh water specie thou

So they would be a good addition to a food chain for our ponds?

They are a good addition to improve the food chain IF they have the correct habitat to survive, reproduce, and annually provide new scuds into the food chain. Otherwise you are just temporarily feeding your fish and putting extra cash in the vendor's pocket. Without the proper habitat to survive long term it is basically the same as annually dumping FHMinnows into the pond which lots of people do regularly. Better management is to utilize species that are able to survive long term the predatory pressure of the current fishery in a well balanced pond based on ones goals. Similar to the bluegill in combination with LM bass, which in most cases, is a self sustaining fish combination. I have tried stocking scuds in a small NW Ohio pond that just had minnows - shiners. Scuds did not survive due to what I believe was a temperature problem rather than a predator - habitat problem.

I used to see tons of these in a creek near my parent's house growing up. The creek was heavily polluted at times along with fish kills due to a photography company upstream dumping chemicals. These little buggers are tough, being about the only survivors from the chemicals.

Chara would be good cover for them, and other thick vegetation like FA and coon tail. I always found them tangled up in wads of vegetation. I may go get some from that now clean creek when I stop by my parents house this weekend. I hadn't thought of these, they are "free" and native!

Yep, good stands of vegetation are one of the keys to having scuds present. I found this one in my dad's old pond while raking up vegetation along the shore.

Hyalella azteca I believe.

I have begun culturing them for feeding to my aquarium fish. They are so prolific they put FHM to shame...

the water lettuce in my crayfish pond is litterally crawling with them. I cleaned it out once in an attempt to reduce the numbers of them. I would say infested

Please tell us more culturing fresh water shrimp CJ!

I am setting up a 75 gallon aquarium to overwinter a few of my faster growing RES that have been pellet trained, but I want to feed them more than just pellets.

I collected about 2 dozen Hyalella azteca from a wild source and placed them in a small 2 gallon aquarium I have. There are also PK grass shrimp in the aquarium and lesser killifish.

Surprisingly, I find the scuds and grass shrimp in particular to be very interesting to watch. Anyways, The aquarium has an external box filter that hangs off the back of the aquarium. The scuds are so numerous that when I am changing the filter media, I simply pull the filter out and bang into a bucket. Literally hundreds of the scuds pop off. If I need more, I can use a small aquarium net and run it through the java moss and obtain more.

I have to do that every so often or the scuds become too abundant. Substrate of the aquarium is sand, with a few larger rocks covered with java moss. I feed ground up goldfish flakes to them once a day. Water changes with distilled water once a week, 10-20%. I have been able to take the over abundant scuds and transfer them to several other ponds in hopes they will take hold. Between the scuds and young least killifish, I have an excellent feeder supply for some of the projects I am working on. I just got my grass shrimp to successfully reproduce for the first time too. I am thinking of making a 10 gallon tank in this combination to increase the numbers I can produce.

Thanks Travis!

Travis, any tips on collecting scuds? Wetlands with no fish? Standard insect nets?

I found mine in a heavily vegetated backwater of a river over a sand/muck bottom. I used a finer than normal dip net and dug it into the thickest vegetation I could find. I then hand sorted through the vegetation, keeping an eye out for the little buggers. Sometimes they are flopping around a bit making them easy to spot, most of the time though they don't move much making them tough to spot with as small as they are.

I have only found scuds once here in Nebraska and that was at my dad's old pond which had a lot of milfoil in it. I think I have a better idea on where to look them now but they still might be tough to find, they are small and hard to spot.

Find a natural body of water, lake or river that has some extremely thick vegetation with a lot of organic accumulation. Often you don't even need a net, just rip up a big hunk of aquatic vegetation and start sorting through it.

Hi
With a torch light,and a kids scoopnet, after it get dark, as they are nocturnal.
Once you develope a eye for it, and/or fine a spot you go the same place every time.
In day light turn over small rocks and you fine them clinging to it.

I disagree with them being werry hardy, we use the lack of, or decreese in scuds, in known natural habitats,that you normaly would find them, as a early warning system, that some thing? is wrong.

Here some other info links: https://www.fba.org.uk/journals/index.php/FF/article/viewFile/286/188
http://www.pondlife.me.uk/crustaceans/gammarusshrimp.php
http://lhsfoss.org/fossweb/teachers/materials/plantanimal/gammarus.html
http://people.cst.cmich.edu/mcnau1as/zooplankton%20web/Gammarus/Gammarus.htm

There are large number of scud species out there. Some are very sensitive to water quality, others not so much. The species I have is one of the more tolerant species. If it can live in the Potomac River, it can live most anywhere. That river has seen some bad days...

Would these work in an outside tank with green water in it?

I don't think the scuds of any species would do real well in primarily green water. They are detritivores and also graze a lot on periphyton especially that which grows on rooted plants- pondweeds.

daphnia will do well in green water..
i've used grape, zuchini and mulberry leaves as "feed" for my scud cultures

Great older thread with a lot of good links I've yet to get to all of them. DonoBBD, could you give us an update on how the grass shrimp, crayfish, etc. have done in your pond since this 2010 thread? I really like the looks of your pond in the pictures on the first post of this thread. Has it evolved the way you envisioned? Any more recent pictures? I recall you saying in another thread the metal dock cover getting blown off.

Thanks!

The crayfish are doing much better than I had expected. So much so that I am quite sure my perch left the feed early June and very few went back to it.

In the spring after we stocked them... so stocked in the summer and the following spring we had young crayfish that were just under 1" under every rock you would turn over on the shore line. What ever we hit on they just took right off in our pond.

Could be the 4" medium recycled concrete and the ph of just under 8 along with being a young pond with lots of bio mass to be gained to reach the limit of the ponds carrying capacity.

Only maintenance I have been doing for the pond is just adding pond dye when the bloom gets less then 18"s.

Didn't get into any grass shrimp. After all the reading with out having the plant life in our pond and seeing how fast the perch left the feed I expect the shrimp or scuds would have just been a snack and never populate. Thought I would stick with the local species and give them the habitat they thrive in. This I think was best for my pond application.

Cheers Don.

Sounds great. I may give the crayfish a try this spring. We have so much FA they would have plenty to eat. Also have a lot of rock around the pond like you do for habitat.

Last year was so dry here the local seasonal small creeks that always have local crayfish in them were for the most part dry. We had good rains that filled the ponds and creeks since then, so maybe this spring will have better luck collecting them. I kind of gave up last year because of the drought, and also because I wanted to give the PK shrimp a chance to get established.

Thanks for the update.