My New Minnow Tank

[feelay]

Looks great! You were talking about treating fresh water to remove chlorine, I use an RV water filter on the end of a garden hose to fill my tank. Seems to work well without having to buy any chemicals.

[Andy1270]

Here's an update on the progress.... I have successfully kept minnows for up to 4 weeks and took all of them to Kentucky's Barkley lake with us last week. I have had a recurring problem with several poor minnows getting stuck in the intake, even since I added the foam sleeve. So I drained it to try something different.

I came up with a new idea today that I'm going to try. I took half of a plastic coated minnow trap and I'm going to use it as a guard for the intake. I simply extended the intake with some 1" fittings, then carefully cut a slot in the half minnow trap. of course I have to add a rubber stop to the traps intake. I've attached a picture for this new concept. I'm going to fill it again today and add 1lb of minnows this evening. I'll be sure to keep you all posted on the conditions in my quest to keep minnows!

Let me know your thoughts.

[Kenny Borel]

Cool. Kinda like I originally suggested. Good thinking on the minnow trap. Let us know how it works.

You could also make a fine wire mesh box something like 8" cubed to cover pickup.

[ifish]

Hey Andy,
On my setups in the past I would drill a lot of small holes in a long peice of pvc pipe and cap the end.This also helps with dead spots in the tank. No filter to change or clean in the tank.Minnows love moving water. Also might consider rounding out the corners so they do not nose die. Looks like your basket will work but will be hard to get the minnows out and also make it harder to clean the tank. Nice setup especially the pump and Johnson control! Thanks for sharing your setup!

[Iowabucks]

Andy, I did not get a chance to read through the whole thread but have had a couple homemade minnow tanks the last few years and have had quite a bit of minnow die off even with changing out water, watching the tank chemistry and keeping the water cold. I have a few questions to ask and sorry once again if they have already been covered.

In your experience, do you find any need for the "beneficial" bacteria to grow that alot of people seem to believe you need for a healthy tank? I did what i could to promote and keep the bacteria but it didn't seem to help.

Do you feed your minnows at all? I see no need if you plan on using the minnows fairly quick. It would just dirty up the tank sooner, but on the other hand it may help the health of the minnows too.

[Andy1270]

Andy, I did not get a chance to read through the whole thread but have had a couple homemade minnow tanks the last few years and have had quite a bit of minnow die off even with changing out water, watching the tank chemistry and keeping the water cold. I have a few questions to ask and sorry once again if they have already been covered.

In your experience, do you find any need for the "beneficial" bacteria to grow that alot of people seem to believe you need for a healthy tank? I did what i could to promote and keep the bacteria but it didn't seem to help.

Do you feed your minnows at all? I see no need if you plan on using the minnows fairly quick. It would just dirty up the tank sooner, but on the other hand it may help the health of the minnows too.

Hi Iowabucks,

The areas that I focus on for keeping healthy minnows are:

Temperature (49-51 degree water)
Aeration (I use an airstone, and also create aeration with the water discharge)
Mechanical filtration -
( I use an old Intex swimming pool filter with a cartridge assembly. I add a sleeve of carbon in the center of the cartridge)
Biological filtration would be nice, like some kind of wet/dry system that trickles over a container of bio balls. I have some experience with marine reef tanks and I could also develop a refugium for biological fitration. I've not added either of these features yet, but I believe it would greatly enhance the water quality and would be more like the Living Stream commercial minnow systems.

For the water I use tap water that is treated with Prime. I also add a small amount of Methylene Blue since it prevents diseases. In addition I add around 1/2 cup of Solar Salt since I've been told it helps with a protective slime coat)

I do water changes about weekly, replacing about 1/2 of the total water volume which is around 45-50 gallons.

As for feeding, I try not to feed them at all since it produces waste. I use up all my minnows within 3-4 weeks them replace them all by buying another pound of them.


I hope this helps!

[Spawn]

You must give us a tutorial this is an awesome project, also give us a price range on how much it cost, minus the freezer

[Andy1270]

OK. So here's an update on the project. The latest intake screen idea (with half of a minnow trap) didn't work out very well. Why? because minnows were getting underneath, and many of the small ones could simply swim through the cage in the gaps.

So today I decided to try yet another approach on the intake. Thanks to iFish for your inspiration of taking a simple 1" PVC pipe of around 2 1/2 feet length with a cap on one end. Then I drilled 4 rows of 1/8 holes with about 25 holes in each row. (100 holes total) This way, any of the holes wont create too much suction from the pump to trap a minnow to the side of the pipe. Minnows love water movement and they hover at the bottom pipe. Thus far today I've not seen any problem with this new approach.

I'm including some pictures using this latest attempt to fix the intake problems.
Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions.

Attachment 89052Attachment 89053Attachment 89054

[Andy1270]

Sorry, it looks like the attachments didn't work in the previous post. Let's try again.....

[Andy1270]

You must give us a tutorial this is an awesome project, also give us a price range on how much it cost, minus the freezer

I've tried throughout this entire post to provide several pictures and description if you'd like to get started. I'd be happy to try to answer any specific questions.

As far as the cost...

I spent around $50 on the Johnson controller from amazon.
I spent around $40 for the fittings/hoses/clamps from Aquatic ecosystems.
I spent another $10 for the pint of Methylene blue from a nearby chemical supply shop (Antec, Inc.)
I spent $15 for the Activated Carbon, mesh sleeve, and Prime used for water treatment.
I spent $5 for the bag of solar salt (used to create a protective slime on the minnows).
I spent $10 for a double pack of the Intex swimming filters. ( I drop the activated carbon sleeve in the middle of it)
I spent around $10 for additional pvc pipe/fittings, etc.
I already had the freezer (10 years old), pump (from kids pool), and aerator (from an aquarium).
I borrowed the temperature scanner to help locate the evaporator/condensor lines before drilling. (very important)

so I guess I have around $140 in out of pocket expenses on this project. I know that would buy a lot of minnows, but I didn't do this to save money. I did it for convenience of having them when I want to pickup and go fishing anytime.

I hope this helps!

Let me know if you have any questions.