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

Nehunter,

Based on the documented work of others, I think you could grow 15,000 or more pk shrimp each year from such a set up. If you would like my recommendations for doing so, reach out by PM and I will share what I would do for a cell that size. Stock rate, fertilization, when to harvest etc.

Frank, I don't know if this is the reason, but Chara hosts a symbiotic periphitic nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria. This is true of all Chara species as far as I know. This adds enough nitrogen to rice paddies to produce rice indefinitely without fertilization. I think it may at least contribute to Chara's superiority over nitella.

After reading this and a few other threads on shrimp I am interested in seeing what dumping say 4k shrimp into my new 1.5 acre pond that is full of chara. I am interested to see if that number would do anything to the chara and to see what it would do for my BG and the young bass/crappie.

I have been hesitant about putting in other fish to take care of the chara (not sure i want to add the extra biomass in something i am not going to catch) and not really into putting chemicals in. They could do nothing for the chara but it would be interesting to see if they did. Also would love to pump up my BG as well.

Sounds like a good idea. If your water has enough calcium to support chara, the shrimp should do well.

if others can tell what chemistry is necessary for shrimp to do well that would help. I've tried stocking a few times and don't seem to have survivors. I'm wondering if my 'hardness' or calcium content could be remedied if that is the missing element.

Go for it, these are great forage and if you can get them to thrive there are many of us interested in learning and trying in our puddles at home.

If RedontheHead who posted above is still here on the forum, I wonder if he still can harvest PK shrimp easily and what insight or help he could be as well!

My father in laws cow wading mud hole I mean pond has lots of ghost shrimp. They are on the edges in the torpedo grass and some floating dollar weed. The only things the Nile tilapia won’t eat. I can run the net and catch several in a few minutes. The pond has a visibility of 0” and has Nile tilapia, and bluegill also some hoplo cats and the odd walking catfish. I honestly wonder if the poor visibility and high fertility (cow manure) helps them thrive and hide.

I am going to test my water as to have as much data as i can. Then in will go the shrimp. I imagine that they will do fine with the amount of chara i have. this farm pond has not had any love until i bought it, time to see what happens.

Who sells nothern PK shrimp?

I do, but having a tough time collecting.. been quite a challenge getting numbers up. Gets better as time goes by.

keep us posted Snipe! I'd love to be your customer and I'm starting to get a bit more vegetation so they might just survive this time. I have purchased PK shrimp on ebay but I know of no other reliable source unless other pondmeisters on this forum help each other out.

Snipe what makes it challenging to collect? Just separating them out from all the weeds that also get in the net?

Yes Snipe, please let us know when you have some numbers. I would love to try them!

I have river bulrush around 50% of my PK shrimp pond and they are way back in that stuff.
I have several patches a sago pondweed starting to grow in that pond so I think it's going to be ideal for continued production.
I'm finding that although I preach being patient, I'm somewhat impatient..

How are PK shrimp normally harvested? Can you bait them out of the weeds and into a trap?

If you can find a way to trap them, that will be very useful information for lots of PK shrimp followers. Using a sweep net among the weedy habitat is the only way that I know how to harvest them.

I stocked some years ago and they disappeared.. would like to try it again with scuds and grass shrimp. Any recommended sellers?

Bought mine from a fella on ebay that goes by "johns796" & is located in Lousiana. Nice guy & great communication. Shrimp were 10 to a double bag, 10 bags per box (I bought 100 shrimp). Bags encased in rockwool insulation, encased in styrofoam. 100 shrimp ran $100 shipped, shipping took 2 days & zero morts. Not cheap by any stretch, but the price per shrimp goes down as the quantity goes up.

Thanks CrazyCarl! tt look like he references them as PK shrimp and also Mississippi grass shrimp. Did they survive cold weather at your location? I'm in south central illinois. where is st. clair county mo?

Looks like St. Clair is a little further south than me; but not that much. We're about straight east of St. Louis.

PK shrimp are adapted to survive even in ponds with extended ice cover such as Dec to ice off in March. I am not sure about longer ice cover conditions. If the PK shrimp are not surviving after stocking then there are 2 very likely reasons. 1. Most Importantly NOT enough good habitat. They need dense finely divided weed cover as refuge and feeding areas. 2. Too many fish present that 'cherry pick' eat them.

IMO if you really want PK shrimp to survive, just put them in a pond with just minnows. Then you will have your own home grown source of minnows and PK shrimp. I am not sure how well PK shrimp would survive with just GSH. Someone needs to try this experiment and then habitat would be important to the outcome - success!. Minnow forage pond would not need to be big. IMO 30ftX30ft would be plenty big enough. I had an associate raise them in an aquarium. So a big tank with good water quality should work okay.

The larger species of Scuds (Gammarus fasciatus or G.lacustris) are a different growing story. They require cooler higher quality water than PK shrimp. Good luck trying to raise them in warm pond habitats.

Rangersedge,

I think the members that have grass shrimp populations that survive long term in their ponds frequently have some type of heavy plant cover in the shallow water edges to provide a safe haven.

You might want to search some grass shrimp threads to see if your pond has the necessary ingredients for success. Otherwise, they are just an expensive snack!

(I am not any type of grass shrimp expert, just going off of fuzzy memories from reading PB.)

I bought 100 PK from the LA ebay dude several years back. In spite of the crayfish and muskrats decimating the emergent vegetation
in my pond there is still a thriving population. I assume they're living in the 100+ cedar trees that I put in while the pond was filling.
I'm located smack in the middle of Misery.

PK=MS grass shrimp. They've only been in since late September, but with only FHM to share the pond with, I'm hoping to have a goodly population of 'em by the time RES & HBG go in in May, along with a good bit more vegetation for 'em to hide & procreate in.

ETA- their native range extends as far north as southern MN & NY. You should be good to go in IL.

A permanent wetland would be a good place to raise grass shrimp(GS) . Also a good idea would be to have a small wetland, nutrient sequestering, weedy area attached to the pond. Where I first collected my GS was in a 1/4 ac pond that was too weedy with coontail or milfoil to fish it. However GS were very abundant.

I have a large aquarium in my classroom that has no predators in it (bristlenose suckerfish only). I would thoroughly enjoy raising PK Shrimp over the winter just watch them and possibly see if I could get a breeding system going? If I could do that it would be nice to have a stock that I could add to a pond. Anyone have details on how to set this up and where to get PK shrimp for it? My initial thoughts would be to put some coontail in the aquarium (I have plenty of it) for the shrimp, better ideas?

Are you a science teacher, or just have an aquarium to calm the ADD type students?

I think showing all of the food chain in a micro-environment would be a great lesson for kids these days since this generation is out "on the land" even less than the immediately preceding generations.