# Keeping LIVE MINNOWS in a tank



## Johnny

anyone keeping LIVE minnows and shiners in a big bait tank ?
I finally set up one of those big 275 gallon plastic totes for my "aquarium" style
bait tank. It has a bubbler, aerator and house type filter.

so here is my question - - - - does anyone keep minnows and shiners like this ??
what do you feed them ? regular fish food from a pet shop ??


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## ggoldy

275 gal is a BIG ole tank! I've kept shrimp, pinfish and croakers alive for a month or so in small aquariums. The hardest part is keeping the temp down(kept them out on the patio). It took some serious filtering and food was trial and error. I concluded it's easier to keep a cast net in the boat for bait fish and buy my bait shrimp one day before a trip. A 275 gal tank would probably change my mind.


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## Johnny

LOL yeppers it is !!
here is how it looks...... cut the top bars off with a 4" grinder.
cut the top out with a skill saw.
wash thoroughly with Dawn dish soap and rinse thoroughly.
add clean water and two boxes of baking soda. let it sit for 2 days
rinse again thoroughly.
fill with water
go fishing, save all the hydrilla and lake grass you can find.
go to bait shop, buy a pound or two of minnows and a couple dozen shiners.
go fishing any time you wanna !!!

my lakes are only 10 to 20 minutes away.
my bait shop is 30 or more minutes away.

For only $50 a tote, I am thinking of making one for salt water as well.
all the pumps and filters and bubblers are on e-bay or at your local pet shop or Lowes/Home Depot.
keep all kinds of goodies in it. Fiddler Crabs, Finger Mullet, Shrimp,
you know, the regular bait stuff for salt water fishing.


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## ggoldy

NOW I understand! I visualized a giant rubbermade tote. LOL You have a great idea. A small pool filter could be hooked up to the drain fitting. I've seen a cooling system here, somewhere, using a coil of tubing in the bottom of a refrigerator with an electronic temp sensing moduale and solunoid to control the tank temp. Everyone has an old beer fridge on their patio....right?
Dang, my spelling is bad!


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## Johnny

well, here in Central Florida, our winter temps should keep the water below 
70 degrees, above 70* and you have cause for concern of being too warm.
My neighbor gave me a new apartment size fridge which now will become a
water chiller unit with a moonshine still type of copper coils inside it to keep the water cool.
I will make a plywood top to keep out the stuff you don't want in the tank.
lizards, birds, rats, squirrels, leaves, cats, chickens, yada yada yada.
I will not hook anything up to the drain valve. it is a 2" gate valve and is
needed to drain the water. I will install some "through hull" fittings if needed
for future pumps, filters, aerators, etc.
LOL basically, I guess everything needed could be built as a Koi Pond.

I just want to find the right food for the minnows. Will go to PetSmart today
and probably pick up some Koi food for starters.
275 gallon tank can hold a LOT of bait !!!!!!!!!

ohhhhhhh this summer, I can leave out water catchers - - -
pots, pans, hubcaps, etc to attract mosquitoes to lay their eggs - - - 
THEN, add the mosquito larvae to the minnow's diet !!! eco friendly.
also, I have seen the little "red cherry shrimp" for sale in my area for Koi Ponds.


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## bobberboy

When I was a kid my parents owned a resort. In the office/bait store there was a long painted concrete tank, divided into 4 or 5 separate units. Over the top of the tank was a 1/2" water pipe with one or two tees above each of the separate units. The tees had a nipple and cap with a small hole drilled into the end, maybe about 1/8" d. The cap w/hole was probably about 6" or so above the water surface. The water ran all the time, the jet from the hole was pretty strong and aerated the water and the constant flow kept it cool. Each unit was connected to the next by a hole in the side with a screen to prevent the minnows from migrating from one tank to the next. The water simply overflowed from tank to tank and finally out through a pipe in the wall.

Every morning there were a few floaters that were thrown out to the gulls. I'm trying to remember whether or not we had to feed the minnows. It seems to me that they rotated in and out of the bait shop quickly enough that feeding them may not have been an issue. It seems that feeding them would cause all kinds of water quality issues with decaying food on the bottom of the tank and detritus from the minnows. It's been a long time but I don't remember the tanks needing cleaning beyond seasonally. It was pretty dim in the bait shop so there were little or no algae problems in the tanks and as they weren't in the sun the temps must have been fairly constant. In my later teens the farmer next to where we lived did the same thing with a stock tank in his pump house. 

I don't know how long the minnows will be in your tank and whether the above makes any sense for your situation. Running the water constantly might be too expensive - or not. It may be more effective than using a bubbler type of system for aeration - or not. I don't know whether you need a license to keep live bait or not and maybe this is happening on the QT but calling the DNR or maybe a commercial fish farm/hatchery could get you some more information. I know state or commercial hatcheries feed their fish so there must be a commercial product available.


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## Johnny

UPDATE:

The tank is turning out to be fantastic !!
I am on well water so there is no chlorine or other additive issues.
The Florida temps are in the 70* range so the water is stable and not too warm.

The 275 gallon tank is about 3/4 full - house type water filter is in place.
1/2" PVC pipe across the top with many holes in it for aeration from the filter outlet.
Went to Pet Smart and found some fish food that is a " slow sinking " type.
A little trial and error, found that balance of correct amount to feed every other day or so.
The tank has about one pound of minnows and a dozen 4" shiners (and one 16" bass).

Only one minnow a day dies on the average - so far, no shiners died at all.
very satisfied with the set up.
I highly recommend this set up to anyone wanting to keep a lot of bait on hand at home.
LOL plus any fish you don't want to clean right away.

Hot summer days will take some engineering to make a water chiller of some type.


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## Insanity

I used a huge old stock tank as a kid to keep 4 inch shiners for bass fishing local ponds. 
I've always fed them gold fish flakes. 
Good call on the Hydrilla! :wink: 

I'm planing on setting up another this spring. Biggest stock tank I can find. Buried 12 inches or so deep and in the shade to help keep it cool. Watering down the ground on really hot days will keep it cooler. As will an airator. :wink: 
Il be using a home made filter system I dreamed up. An over flow system based on salt water tanks. It will over flow ( to take out floaters). Into a pan filled with foam and bio media. Then get pumped back into the tank by a small pond pump. Add in some creek gravel, some plants, snails, and few craw fish and it should run very clean and clear. 

There's tons of info on the net about water quality for marine and fresh water tanks for anyone enter rested. Easy to learn the basics. The bigger the water volume the easier to maintain of corse, and possibly no water changes.


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## reelrusty

:?: Hey Johnny!? What was originally in that tank? I've seen em up in this country for liquid agriculture chemicals and I worry about that. Secondary to that I haven't seen any for sale but haven't really looked. I sure will now though. I currently use a Rubbermaid 150 gal stock tank with a plywood lid and wally world aerator. Your set up looks worlds better!!


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## Johnny

Some of those 300 gallon tanks have some pretty nasty stuff in them.
Others have like molasses, chocolate syrup, and other food grade materials.
Luckily, the one that I got had agriculture calcium. I cut the top metal pipe bars off
with a 4" grinder. (careful, it leaves sharp edges) then cut half the plastic top off with a 
skil saw then laid it down on its side and hand scrubbed the inside with a sponge and Dawn Dish Detergent. 
Came out pretty clean. Put it on level ground, put in two bottles of Dawn Soap and filled it up, let sit
for two days, then cleaned it again.
There will be a lot of residue in the 2" ball valve so it takes a few more cleanings of just the valve
while opening and closing it repeatedly to flush the mechanism clean.
The valve takes a standard 2" PVC threaded coupling which can be reduced down
to accept the standard garden hose PVC fitting so you can direct the water to where you want it.
BEFORE you fill the tank for your minnows and shiners (or other bait) heat up your hot melt
glue gun and glue some 1/4" wire screen over the valve area (on the inside) so you can change the water without
loosing your bait. What I will do next week is put hinges on the half lid to keep stuff out.
My fear is that an animal will get in and drown and I really don't want that.
I put two bags of play sand in my wheel barrow and washed it well until the water ran clear
then put the sand in the tank. Maybe it will make the minnows more happy ??? Healthy even ?
Don't want to put in too much stuff then you can't get them with a net when it is time to harvest some.
I did find a neat idea of putting in a 3' piece of metal 6" stove pipe for them to hide in. Easy to take out
for whatever reason. also be careful of what plants you put in - taking into consideration of using a net
later on. The tank has been sitting for a few days now with the sand (no bait). will drain it tomorrow and
fill with fresh water. Then, go down to the lake and get some floating vegetation. Water Hyacinths.
Something that will be easy to remove by hand when needed and will help filter the water.
I got some "slow sinking cichlid fish food" at the pet store and a little bit goes a LONG way. 
Start off with 1/2 teaspoon to see how far it goes. Use sparingly.
Get a piece of garden hose, start a siphon, then you can easily suck up stuff (poop) off the bottom.
If the minnows are pooping, that means they are eating the food, that means they are healthy !!!!!!
I found it is not really necessary to have a filter on the pond pump. It clogs up too quickly. and $8 a week
for a filter is just a bit much for FISH BAIT !!!
For the past month, I had a pound of minnows and two dozen shiners. 2 or 3 minnows died a day and zero-none
of the shiners ever died in the tank. Very convenient for when you just want to go fishing on a whim.
The wife also put in a few slab crappies and a couple of 3lb bass. (of which she consumed).
Next week I will fashion some kind of surface skimmer drain at the 3/4 full mark so I can just put the garden 
hose in with a slight 5 GPH fill rate to give fresh water and maybe get rid of some suspended material.
Good Luck !

https://diet.yukozimo.com/what-do-minnows-eat/


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## Jim

wow, nice setup! =D>


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## huntinfool

Neat idea.


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## Captain Ahab

Nuts


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## ccm

This is starting to give me ideas again. A few years back my dad brought home a 300 gallon round stock tank for free that his place of work threw out. It kinda looks like a small swimming pool. :LOL2: Our original plans were to convert it into something to keep huge quantities of bait alive but things happen & that project got put on hold so its been sitting behind the shed ever since. But seeing this thread has sparked my interest again so hmmm what to do now except plan & save for supplies. :mrgreen:


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## Jim

:LOL2: 

oh boy, here we go.


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## lovedr79

next year this time we will need to do a poll to see who is raising their own minnows.


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## parker23

Is anyone raising live spot in a tank? I would love to know how to raise live spot over the winter. Striper come in spring and there are no spot in Delaware Tom/parker23


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## H20hawgs

Here is what I use to keep Shad and herring alive to striper fish. Works great!
I have some friends it's a similar set up as yours and they love them.
https://youtu.be/U8M0EtITKM0


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## Johnny

Parker, start now doing some research on Salt Water Bait Tanks
on places like YouTube, etc.
Once you get the salinity to where the fish are happy, moving water
and aerator, you should be good to go.
In my opinion, spot are pretty hardy creatures and probably will keep well
in a tank. 
Do some trial runs during the summer then when it comes winter, you will
have it down to where the tank runs itself.
You can get the salt kits off of e-bay or at your pet store.

Keep us posted if you decide to try it !!! ><)))))>


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