ive been buying them by the pound for several years now..i have a 40 gallon fiberglass minnow vat that i have set up under a lean too off the back of one of my sheds..i usually put about 30 galoons of well water in it..i use a koi pond pump and a dual line fish tank air pump..i get the O2 granuals the dealers use and treat the water 2 days before i put 10 lbs of minnows in the vat..the ones i use i get 14-18 dozen per lb..i made a top from hardware cloth to keep stuff out of the water..the trick is..NEVER feed them..as i learned from my local minnow farm..the minnows waste is high in ammonia..filtering will not remove the ammonia..they will live 3 weeks with minimal loss if you keep the water cool and dont feed them..if you use alot of minnows its the only way to go..heck i use 20 minnows each time i bait a round of poles..it aint hard to use 2lb a day..he also tells me that if you keep mature minnows in darkness for 72 hours they will breed..they have these thick black tarps they roll out over the ponds and keep them in darkness..then i reckon so many weeks later they sein out the adults..thought about setting up a 50 gallon fish tank and try it with 1/2 lb or so...