Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Shrimp

Has anyone had much success introducing various kinds of shrimp to their pond? I'd love to add some as another source of forage for my fish.

Several of us on here have added grass shrimp to our ponds. bobad one member on here introduced them from the wild with good success and has had them in his pond for several years now if I recall correctly. A few others have introduced grass shrimp this year and are waiting for long term results... teehjaeh57 is one of those members who has. He is the grass shrimp man! HAHA If you look to make an order he usually tries to get a better bulk price by ordering for a group of us. If my shrimp survive the winter then I will be more willing to say go stock them as they aren't super cheap. Grass shrimp are the only species I am aware that could be introduced into a pond that would reproduce in the pond...

Here's the most in depth previous post I know of for grass shrimp:
http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...true#Post157766

CJ said it. tj has made it easy & cheap to put shrimp in your pond.

I honestly don't see a single down side to stocking grass shrimp. They area preferred food species for many species and feed on detritus, turning it in to fish food for sunfish and bass... I am hoping they take hold in the two ponds I put them in. Neither pond has anything but shiners and minnows in one and suckers in the other, so if they don't take hold I can't blame it on them being eaten. Come spring I will do a seine survey to see what if any survival I got... If they do take hold, they will no doubt add to the natural food chain.

I would love to put grass shrimp in my pond but I think the PH 5.7 is too acidic for them.

AP - no clues on their tolerance for PH that low. I'll bet Bill could help us there.

I love my Shrimp and all signs are positive at this point in terms of their survival and establishment in my ponds.

I don't profess to know exactly what benefit they'll have serving as forage, but it's another source available to the panfish and they help consume detritus...and they are very cool!

AP, if I had to guess I would say your pond may be too acidic for them... I honestly don't know for sure. Let me research it some and see what I can dig up.

I'm going to try and bring this old thread back up to see if we can get an update from CJBS2003. There have been some recent questions about grass shrimp so maybe he can give us an update to this 2009 thread and tell us how they did in his pond. This old thread may not work. Will see if it will load because I had to adjust the URL to bring it up.

Thanks for bringing this thread back Snrub,

I read this thread in the past as well and an update would be great. Once I get vegetation in place, shrimp is on my potential list of forage to stock.

$10.99/lb on sale this week. Just nuked some buried in salsa. Not bad!

Here is a corrected link to the old database from the second post in this thread.

More grass shrimp info

I have thousands now. The upcoming year will be tell tale as the predator numbers are getting up there. The shrimp had 3 full years to multiply without any serious predation. There are quite a number of mouths in the pond looking to eat them now, so we'll see if they maintain a population.

I still haven't been successful in getting them started. Have small pond filled, lots of plants, ready for shrimp and/or scuds. Any good sources out there now?

Hey Rangersedge,

Let me know if you find an Illinois source for shrimp and I will do the same.

What is a "scud?"

Bill D.

Iraqi missiles that don't work

Come on man they worked...kind of like FHMs...slow moving and easy targets!

Yeah, you can catch those with a fish net.

Just wondering about the Blood Red Shrimp that showed up in Muskegon, MI on Lake MI in 2006. (right down the road)

Haven't heard anything negative about that invasive species, and the biologists were saying, Cool! YP should love them!

Info kinda shut off.

TJ....what is the ballpark window of how
many grass shrimp to stock per acre of pond?

And what's the current price?

Depends on many variables such as presence/density of submerged vegetation, presence, species, and population density of fishery. Provide those variables and I should be able to help with stocking qty suggestions. I have introduced them successfully into every BOW so far over the past several years - but sometimes it's required multiple stockings.

Hey TJ,

What do you think of trying to raise grass shrimp and BNM together in one of my mini forage ponds?

Bill

That is pretty close to what I am trying Bill. I've got about a 1/20th acre forage pond with FHM, a few RES and the shrimp. Should be able to see how it turns out come next summer. So far at least some are still alive.

My intention is to let them multiply in this forage pond and eventually move some to the main pond to get them started there. Also this forage pond overflow drains into the main pond, so also hopefully while the shrimp are in the pelagic stage if I can get a rain event to cause some overflow maybe they will self establish.

Still an experiment in progress.

Thanks for the feedback Snrub. Please keep me up to date. My thought was BNM or FHM forage is different than the shrimp so they won't compete for food. I was thinking throwing in some dead maple tree leaves for shrimp forage. I will not be putting my mini ponds in until next summer so anything you can tell me would be great!

My mini ponds will be RAS with the main pond for the BNM or FHM forage.

TJ...please keep me in the loop this Spring.

Last Spring I had a family emergency going on
and just was not able to do it.

I want to try some grass shrimp this year.

I think that approach would be fine - any minnow species and grass shrimp should perform well together. Grass shrimp prefer areas of vegetation - not sure if it's essential for spawning or just their preferred habitat, but I'd consider establishing something prior to stocking. I also found many along docks edges using FA on dock floats either grazing it or hiding in it.