Keeping minnows alive

Keep em good and cold. No city water. Bait saver helps and no food. They last a long time this time of year. Aerate if you can.

Wayne C:
 
Nice set up !
 
I used to use a 50 gallon horse trough in the basement, but it was not that eloaborate ! Thats awesome !

Thanks guys, I set up a 10 gallon fish tank with 5 dozen or so minnows. May have to try something else. Let the water sit for a week to dissipate the chlorine and my filter has and ammonia reducer.

Do any of you catch your own? I have only gotten chubs and suckers when iv'e tried

Waynec - awesome setup.

Have you ever tied to keep gizzard shad or alewives alive in there?

Those things are a pain to keep alive.

Alwives have to be one of the hardest things to keep lively they seem very fragile, and they almost seem panicky, guess I'd be high strung too if I had to dodge wipers every spring and summer.

ice. just sayin'

Pork, yeah, it keeps shad just fine. I have had, maybe 3 dozen three or 4 inchers tops once. A couple of other times have had less, some smaller. Would love to get some larger ones. Hard for me to catch since cast nets arent legal around here...so i sometimes do some pizz poor improvising and manage to catch a few once in awhile. Theyre all pretty delicate, but seems the smaller ones are more delicate than the larger ones.

I find the hardest part is to keep them in good shape when and just after being caught. If you can get them straight into a large container with something like shad keeper or salt, to help keep their scales on, then get them home fairly quickly, the ones in good shape when they get home, they keep very well in my tub. Its just a 100 gallon horse tub, and got the idea of how to make a filter online with large bucket filter media, and a garden pond pump. Ive made a transport container out of a cooler, and ran pvc plumbing system inside self contained, with a livewell pump. No filter on it though. Though i may have to make a smaller version of my big one this season to go in the cooler to filter out scales etc. Freshly caught bluegills expel all kinds of things and make a mess out of the water at times. Cant keep them in it long. Same with shad, they lose scales and breathe them in, and ive read that damages their gills.

Ive kept just about any bait fish you can think of in the tub at one time or another... 'Cept alewife, we dont have those around here.

Yep. In the bucket there is filtering media, plus alot of quartz stone gravel. The nooks and crannies between the gravel stones builds up bacteria and gets some sludge, white film etc. in the bucket built up, and the water in the tank is crystal clear, and low ammonia. The amonia gets fed on as it passes throught the filter media & gravel containing the bacteria i think.

I dont do partial water changes, my filter was actually to the specs. that would be sufficient for even larger container, so it does a pretty good job. But i do add a bucket of water that i set aside so the chlorine evaporates and dump it in when i take a bucket out to take bait fishin'to keep proper water level. I will once every few months do a total water change, especially when ive been keeping lots of large baits in there, pretty much steady. Especially if there is a little sediment in the bottom that didnt get sucked to filter & walls of tub get a little slime/film build up.

ORIGINAL: wayne c

Yep. In the bucket there is filtering media, plus alot of quartz stone gravel. The nooks and crannies between the gravel stones builds up bacteria and gets some sludge, white film etc. in the bucket built up, and the water in the tank is crystal clear, and low ammonia. The amonia gets fed on as it passes throught the filter media & gravel containing the bacteria i think.

I dont do partial water changes, my filter was actually to the specs. that would be sufficient for even larger container, so it does a pretty good job. But i do add a bucket of water that i set aside so the chlorine evaporates and dump it in when i take a bucket out to take bait fishin'to keep proper water level. I will once every few months do a total water change, especially when ive been keeping lots of large baits in there, pretty much steady. Especially if there is a little sediment in the bottom that didnt get sucked to filter & walls of tub get a little slime/film build up.

Over time, you'll have nitrate buildup if you don't do some type of water change.  Ammonia and nitrite are very toxic to fish, nitrate is a lot less so, but still toxic at very high levels. 

Couple things...  Don't ever mess with that filter media unless you have to.  I might add a pad to the top of the bucket so the water drips through the pad first, then through the biological media.  Then you can take the pad out, rinse the sludge off, and put it back in without messing with your bio-filter.  If you empty the tank out and let the media dry out, you'll kill your bacteria.  If you empty the tank and fill with chlorine water you'll kill off a good deal of the bacteria.  It sounds like you're doing the right things, nothing speaks as loudly as success.  I've used similar setups on a much larger scale i.e. I built canister type filters out of 55 gallon pickle barrels that ran my entire fish room.  Yours is a very nice setup for bait fish.  Right now I have a leaker 210 gallon tank in my basement that I'm considering repairing and turning into a bait tank.  I'm just not sure I use live bait enough to justify it.