There are five species of freshwater caridean prawns that are native to the United States and have potential for aquaculture. None are currently farmed in controlled conditions due to difficulties of their management during the larval rearing phase. The majority of experimentation with these species occurred in the 1970s to the 1990s and then subsequently were abandoned with the rising popularity of the giant river prawn Macrobrachium rosenbergii. Nevertheless, rising interests in sustainable aquaculture have provided the opportunity to explore the aquaculture of native species. Thus, the objective of this work was to carry out the larviculture of the Ohio river prawn Macrobrachium ohione . Adult specimens of the Ohio river prawn were obtained from the Atchafalaya river system near Berwick, Louisiana and Butte La Rose, Louisiana, and were then transported to the Aquaculture Research Center of Lincoln University of Missouri. Berried females were separated into tanks of freshwater. Larvae were separated into 25 gallon tanks and were gradually acclimated to brackishwater with a salinity of 10, pH of ~8.5, dissolved oxygen of ~5 mg/L, and a temperature of 28° celsius. Larvae were fed with Artemia nauplii. The larviculture lasted 65 days. No post-larvae were obtained. It is noteworthy that survival was ~85% until day 45 of the pilot larviculture. This is promising when considering that there was no use of inert feed and little water maintenance, indicating the hardiness of this species. We believe that we were able to reach an advance stage before metamorphosis. The use of inert feed and more adequate rearing conditions will facilitate metamorphosis of this species, which has yet to be done in a controlled setting.