Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

you'd need quite a few to make a meal.. not sure how they taste, but when i was young, i ate crayfish caught in streams, probably taste like shrimp..
i'm thinking about setting up a glass shrimp tank as a food source for my fish

If you ever raise enough that you can spare 20 or 30, I'd be curious to hear what they tasted like. Google thinks those get up to 2"... still not very big really.

They're pretty cheap on ebay. I'm thinking of getting them to just handle some of the algae. I wonder if they will go for algae over duckweed . Would be nice to have something in the duckweed tank that doesn't also eat the duckweed.

Aquaculture of Texas, Inc.
Weatherford Tx.

Freshwater Prawn Hatchery
Macrobrachium rosenbergii

http://www.aquacultureoftexas.com/

They do require Saltwater for part of their early life cycle, and they are very cannibalistic, unless they are keep separated in some manner.

Might work good grown under deep water floating rafts, with some kind of large mesh separator walls, that would not block the water flow through the tank.....

Short answer is no. In marinara seafood mixes you get very small prawns/shrimps but it must take ages to shell them all. My Austrian friend was telling me about a shrimp which I presume is fresh water, since we were talking about Austria, that they don't bother shelling because they are so small. Meant to be very tasty.

I'm interested to find out what kinds of temperatures these cherry shrimp prefer. And, if I get enough, who knows maybe i'll try them out. For sure if they need shelling there's a no go for me they're way to small. But if you can just cut off the tails and cook em up, then hey another food source.

From what i've been reading today, they aren't fighters, they breed easy, they love algae, for about $40 you can get 30 of them on ebay (or for $20 you can get 6 which might be a better way to start?). I still need to learn if my tilapia will eat them (that would be a good thing, another food source for them too ). Might be better than duckweed in the end , and if they will keep the algae down in my duckweed tank, double win.

I honestly don't know much about shrimp... I don't really eat them, don't really want to. But if I could raise something other people like to eat, I think that'd be pretty cool. I was wanting to raise something in addition to finfish (haven't decided there either it gets chilly enough in the winter that tilapia might be challenging, but either that or catfish).

As for the tiny shrimp, they just chop the heads off, right? But no shelling them or de-veining?

Silkcom, look for the other thread where someone mentioned them... I think he said something crazy like stocking them 50 to the gallon... I mean, damn. That'd be pretty good.

As for tilapia feed, just give them the heads you chop off!

As for me, it's still a toss-up between some kind of shrimp like these (glass, cherry, whatever) and the red claw crayfish. Those are very nearly lobster-sized, even if they're a bit more difficult to raise.

they're pretty small, 50 to a gallon wouldn't seem too far off (probably like 1 fish to 3 gallons). Full, but not too full. If they don't end up tasting good or being good to eat, then i'll probably just chop them up when there are too many and feeding them to the tilapia. When I get the catfish for outside hopefully i won't even have to worry about doing that .

A few new questions...

Does anyone want to make a guestimate of what "count" these shrimp would be (cherry, glass, etc)? They'd be pretty tiny, so it has to be fairly high I'd think.

Also, does anyone have any idea what the stocking density could realistically be? How many pounds of these things might safely be raised per gallon? Half a pound per? Less?

i didn't know what you meant for a minute there.. but as far as tails/lb.. it would have to be in the hundreds
just to small as a human food source, but given a decent density they'd be a great supplemental feed to your fish, and assist in breaking down solids

I'm pretty sure the ones I was talking about are eaten whole.

I know my mum deep frys small 2-3cm shrimp some times, dont think it would work with cherry/ghost shrimp though.

Why not?

RS what type of shrimp are thriving all over your tanks? can't remember the name but def have to get that going - though I assume they can't handle our winters either >_< just another excuse to build a greenhouse!

gammarus i think