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

It can be very labor intensive collecting PK - that's reflected in the pricing - that's also the reason i don't provide them commercially. That guy selling them on Ebay wades in swamps, canals, and ditches for them. Bear in mind, "exotic" species of forage like LCS, SFS, BNM often go for $4/ea or more [just ask Snipe] - yeah it's aquarium pricing, but due to low demand, it's what the market bears. When you compare shrimp pricing to WE, SMB, YP, etc. they are comparable. When I collect shrimp I easily spend $1/ea in collection effort labor, including the hours spent separating them from BF tadpoles and YOY sunfish - it's a total muddy PITA and sometimes a few hours will yield 25-50 PK. The only feasible way to approach this would be to dedicate a cell to PK shrimp reproduction - demand just isn't high enough for me to dedicate a cell to PK shrimp production and hassle with interstate shipping [and potential legal issues], live arrival guarantees/refunds, etc.

One other thing to consider is when one stocks PK in the right environment/timing, they will create a self sustaining population and there's no need for further investment. That helped me mitigate the initial stocking sticker shock when I started 10 years ago. Now all my 7 ponds have solid populations - but I did invest significantly initially at $.50 a pop.