Printable View
after many years of dumping minnows when im done fishing and knowing its gonna be a few days before i get to go again. i have decided to build me a minnow holding tank at home to hold the minnows from trip to trip. anyone have any ideas where i can get a suitable plastic barrel or tank to use for the tank? Ive seen these large blue barrels at different places but have no idea where to get one. also any suggestions on pumps, aerators etc would be appreciated. thanks
get any pump that can hook up to the deep cycle battery that u have so many of :D
go to bass pro, and they are about $35. they are a twin tube so you put a lot of O2 in them
another option is the Minn-O-mizer that bass pro also sells. it runs quiet and cools water at the same time. if you get that, then u will also need to get the 6v converter )which BP sells at the same place.
as i told u before, do not get a water filter for the reasons that i shared with you. regardless, u will be needing to change the water out regularly
next time i climb abord the beast, i can show you how both of them work.
Rango--I keep minnows in a 48 quart Coleman ice chest on the boat. They will keep for a week or longer. As a matter of fact I usually have to buy a few dz minnows each time I go out and I just throw them in the chest with the rest of em so it's possible some minnows are in there for several weeks. The key is to keep the water cool and to add some fresh water every coupla days. I keep a bucket with a coupla gals of lake water in my "beeridgerator " in the basement and take out some of the water from the ice chest and add the cold fresh water. I use lake water because I live on the lake and the chlorinated tapwater can kill the minnows. If you have well water it shouldn't be a problem. If you have chlorinated water you can get an Omni cartridge filter from any hardware store and fit it to a hose to use for the minnow tank. If you don't have a fridge to chill the water just put some ice in with the minnows. Adding alittle water every coupla days isn't much work and having a tank with a lid will keep the critters out. It also eliminates the need for a pump or aerator. As a matter of fact I can tell ya from past experience that an aerator can cause the water to heat up by splashing the water in the warm air. BTW I will be makin smokies tomorrow.
Hey Rango:
Just get you a 10 or 20 gal glass aquarium with a filter system and aerator system. Install an underwater gravel filter and add some clean gravel. I use the tank that I had for my tropical fish now for minnows as I got rid of all my tropical fish. You can get all you need at Pets-Mart.
I use PH 7.0 which is a powder that I add to the water. One small scoop of the white powder to 10 gallons of water will eliminate the chlorine from tap water and make the water's Ph stay at 7.0 which is perfect for keeping the minnows alive. I also add some Stress Coat by Aquarium Pharmaceutical, Inc. which I also got at Pets-Mart. I added some Tetra-Aqua EASYBALANCE to the water also. 5ml to each five gallons once a week. The EASYBALANCE make the aquarium's water stable and eliminates the need to have to change the water for approx 6 MONTHS. EASYBALANCE can be obtained at Pets-Mart as well. I just started using the EASYBALANCE about 3 months ago.
I have kept 5 White Crappie alive in a 20 gallon glass aquarium since Oct 2003. I am going to keep them feed until Oct 2004 and either eat them or let them go in the lake. It all depends on just how big they get.
I have been feeding these 5 crappie minnows since I got them at Patoka Lake in Southern IN last Fall. There was a Crappie USA tournament at the lake that fall and I drove up to see all the fish that everyone caught. A guy in the parking lot had severa crappie that he was culling from his catch before the weight-in and he gave them to me. I brought them home and stuck them in my tropical fish aquarium. They ate all my tropical fish so I just started to go to the local bait shop and buy 4 dozen minnows at a time. I set up a small 10 gallon aquaium for the minnows. Every few days I scoop up some minnows in a dip net and put them into the tank with the crappie and watch to see how and if the crappie eat the minnows.
I have found that no matter what the weather outside (ie whatever the barometric pressue is outside and inside my house) the crappie will eat immediately if they have not been feed for a day or so. If they are hungry they will feed immediately. The only thing that prevents them from eating newly introduced minnows into the aquarium is the overhead aquarium lights. If those lights are on the crappie will not eat right away even if it has been 3 or 4 days since they were last feed. But as soon as I turn off the overhead aquarium light they will start to eat the minnows.
I have proven TO MYSELF that light is the key to catching crappie and that barometric pressure has little to do with whether crappie feed or not. Now if the crappie are full then they won't eat no matter what.
At times I have seen one of my crappie ( the one and only black crappie) eat 4 minnows before the 4 other White crappie can eat one minnow. That black crappie is agressive and feeds faster than the other. In fact as soon as I come into the room he watches me and comes up off the bottom ready to feed. LOL
Bottom line is that a small aquarium can keep the minnows alive for a long time.
Every so often you can take the old water out with a gravel cleaner and add some fresh water. I keep a 6 gallon drinking water plastic can handy for adding new water to the aquarium. I put one scoop of the Proper pH 7.0 from Aquarium Pharmaceutical, Inc. (Pets-Mart Product) to the 6 to 10 gallon container and then add cool water from the bathroom. I keep this water jug handy with fresh water that has been dechlorinated with teh Proper pH 7.0 powder.
I keep the aquariums in my house and the AC keep the house and the aquarium water at around 76 to 78 deg F. In the winter I have a 100 watt aquarium heater for the 20 gal aquarium and a 50 watt heater for the 10 gal aquarium to keep the water warmer than the house. The aquarium room in on the NW corner of my house and it stays a bit cooler than the rest of my house in the winter time. Those cold NW Indiana Winds cool that side of my house down more than the Southern Exposed part of my house.
Today I spent about 4 hours cleaning the 20 gallon aquarium.
I took the crappie out and put them in a 48 Quart Coleman Cooler to which I added 10 gallons of the treated water and air pump with air stone for a temporary holding tank for the fish. I had to take all the water out of my 20 gal aquarium and scoop out all the gravel. I had to take out the underwater gravel filter parts so that I could get the crap out from under the plastic parts. It took a while but I was having a lot of trouble keeping the Aquarium's water pH at 7.0. The pH had gone down to 6.3 and that was not good. All that crappie crap had sank down below the gravel and got stuck where I could not clean it with the gravel filter system. So once every 6 months you may have to clean the tank real good to keep the system going.
I have a pH meter and I use the water test strips that tests for Ammonia, Nitrates, Nitrites, pH, Hardness, Alkalanity, and whatever else I can think of. LOL
I monitor my aquariums water quality closely which is why I have been able to keep these large crappie alive in such a small aquarium.
One day I may have to get one of those big 100 gallon aquariums. I really do enjoy watching the fish.
Good luck in getting your minnow tank setup.
Some guys just did a pond in the back yard and raise the minnows in the shallow pond. They collect them for fishing with big minnow traps a day before they go fishing.
Ask Jerry Blake from Arkansas about how to raise minnows. He is a professional fishing guide down in Arkansas and he is partial to rosey reds. So he grows his own for his guide business.