hey there,
anyone know of any type of shrimp (algae eating) for a pond that are native to texas and also not likely to munch the fish?
there are plants in the pond section, but the river that runs between the two ponds is filling in with algae and is really too shallow for more plants/algae eating fish.
any advice?
kris

Would snails work? Is there any way to remove the excess nutrients that the algae is consuming?

hi im from mcalllen way down south texas and i had gone to a nearby canal to catch some sheepshead minnows and my cousin pulled out two ghost shrimps i thought that was amazing.

Can you plant some willows along the sides to create more shade?

Is this in natural, or something like a koi pond in your backyard?

Just because it's in the water doesn't mean it's native. I think ghost shrimp actually come from Europe.

Texas has three native species of ghost shrimp (Palaemonetes pugio, P. vulgaris and P. intermedius), but all require brackish (and saltier) water. They would not survive in your pond.

some people here have had ghost shrimp successfully breed in their ponds. i too recall having kept 10 GS a very long time ago '00 and when tearing down the tank having noticed a shrimplet about the size of a 1 or 2 week old RCS shrimplet.

Is this for breeding purposes or a theme thing? Cause don't amano only breed in saltiness?

actually Palaeomonetes pugio is native to texas - same genus as ghost shrimp.. usually called grass shrimp so in my previous posting above thats what i caught. grows to the same size of ghost shrimp.

No, Texas has several species of native freshwater Palaemonetes (like P. paludosus of US feeder fame and P. texanus). Not sure how effectively they'll control algae -- I mean, I'm sure they'll eat some, but they're not specialists or high-volume consumers. Texas also has four species of Macrobrachium but, in addition to going after fish, they probably won't help too much on that front either.

Unfortunately, zero atyid shrimp (from the family containing Amanos, fan shrimp, and the familiar dwarf species) are native to the continental U.S. apart from one or two amphidromous Caribbean species that make it up into southern Florida, the federally endangered Syncaris pacifica in California, and two subterranean species (also endangered) of Palaemonias in Kentucky and Alabama.

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Palaemonetes pugio is a widely distributed western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico species occurring from Canada to Texas (Kaplan 1988).