Shiners with discoloration and fin problems

I just got my bait tank all set up and have been having good luck until my last 2 lbs of shiners I put in there. My tank is a 100 gallon plastic stock tank and I have a large aerator good for 180 gallon tank with 4 stones running in it as well as a 550 GPH pond pump with an external pond filter good for an 800 gallon pond. The return out of the filter runs into a 28 inch piece of 3/4 PVC with many many holes drilled in it to spray water down into the water. Water normally stays at 75-80 degrees in the garage.

My problem here recently is a lot of the shiners look discolored when I look at them in the tank. They have large areas of white on their backs as opposed to the normal black coloring. When I dip these shiners up and look at them they are missing all of their scales and it looks like something has been eating at them. Some of them are missing most of their tail fin or missing parts of their mouth/lower jaw.

What in the world would this be? I assume it is some sort of fungus? I will be taking all of these shiners out of this tank tomorrow but I dont want this to happen again.

Your tank is overcrowded and you have a fungus that will continue to kill your minnows. You have too much aeration and too much turbulence in the tank which is causing stress on your shiners. You need to add around 4 ounces of rock salt and 2 tablespoons of oxytetracycline,which is available at your local coop, to the tank. The antibiotic will kill the fungus and the rock salt will promote the slime layer. At best, the tank should only hold 1 pound of minnows and the minnows need to be fed.

I'm just guessing here, but isn't 75-80deg a bit warm for Shiners ??

... cp :cool:

Shiners can take the heat, but it would be better if the water was cooler.

I would clean and disinfect the tank before getting more minnows. Wash real good afterwards cause disinfectant could kill them.

Sounds like you got em alittle over crowded, expecally if their tails look short

Way too warm and way too crowded. Definitely fungus is killing your bait. Overcrowded and less than perfectly maintained home aquariums have the identical same problem with fungus. Your set up is perfect for such an infection. Oxytetracycline and non-iodized salt may work as a temporary stop gap, but it may already be too late for most of those you already have. It really pays to use the oxytetracycline immediately on each new batch, too, they will be coming into your operations heavily stressed already. And before you use your salt, be sure that the species you get is salt tolerant, not all of them are. Your source of supply should know about the salt tolerance and the proper dosage for the oxytetracycline.

Best to tear it down, scrub it down and start over. Do not use soap or detergent to clean it with either. Actually the best disinfectant is vinegar, because after a real good washing what residue is left in the tank walls should be eliminated or at least rendered harmless, if you let the operation run without fish in it until the nitrate/nitrite cycle works itself out. Normally that cycle only needs to be worked out in the beginning. Soap and a lot of other disinfectants soak into even glass leaving behind a very persistent residue that will kill fish.

If you are getting scum and foam on the surface you may also need a protein skimmer and you definitely need to be a whole lot faster to remove deads and dying.

There are coolers available at little or no more cost than the big aerator that can be used to keep your tank temperature down, too. The aerator is probably overkill anyway, like was mentioned in another response. A whole lot of bait shops even up here north in Minnesota use them. If you are handy, you might even be able to make your own out of an old refrigerator that is still working well. You wouldn't have to set it very cold either. Local shiners can take the heat well enough, if everything else is perfect, but cooling them off makes keeping them a whole lot easier. If you feed them, also be sure to siphon off what they don't eat up right away as well as any accumulating waste products. Sanitation is your friend.

If you got a Scheels in your area that has a minnow tank, ask to see their operation, including the back room. One of my cousins got tired of cleaning scum and tossing out massive deads in their Sioux Falls operation and designed a set up for them that very effectively dealt with that problem. He has installed that setup for them quite successfully in a number of other Scheels stores around the country.

I assume you are referring to a bio filter?

A bio filter works on a balanced nitrogen (nitrate/nitrite) cycle generally centered around some sort of sponge or something like one that holds an active bacterial colony serving a relatively stable tank with a long term population, a protein skimmer actually removes organics before they get into and possibly overwhelm that cycle. In a hobby situation you see protein skimmers more often used in marine aquariums, since the balance there is often quite a bit touchier and the sizes are generally much larger, but they are not restricted to marine use.

Thank you all for the replies! I would have responded sooner but we are spending 10 days at the lake fishing for crappie and walleye and this is the first time I have been anywhere with internet access.

I will certainly start from scratch again and keep the number of shiners down so I am not over crowding them.
Does anyone have a link or know of where I can pick up one of the coolers you were referring to?

Thanks again for all the help! It is much appreciated.

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Originally Posted by crappieslinger

Thank you all for the replies! I would have responded sooner but we are spending 10 days at the lake fishing for crappie and walleye and this is the first time I have been anywhere with internet access.

I will certainly start from scratch again and keep the number of shiners down so I am not over crowding them.
Does anyone have a link or know of where I can pick up one of the coolers you were referring to?

Thanks again for all the help! It is much appreciated.

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Check with the bulk or wholesale bait dealers in your area. They very often have a hand in setting up or remodeling the bait shops they service. If they cannot or do not supply the equipment themselves, they will probably be able to point you to someone who does.

In a slightly different twist, there used to be coolers for small time milkers that keep milk cold by floating the "cream cans" in cooled water. You might even be able to find a former milker who has an abandoned one that still works or can be repaired. If you have an organic milker who still provides unpasturized milk (where that is still legal) check with them, or with any local Amish or Old Order Mennonite (they have retained a remarkable supply for some of the products that are obsolete elsewhere and not all of them completely eschew electricity, either). Or check with a local grocery supply house that may be able to point you to one of those small grocery store coolers that you sometimes still see on the end caps in supermarkets to keep fresh or frozen meats fresh. There used to be that kind of thing for bottled soda pop too, and one of those would work even if used and maybe available from one of the local pop distributors. Anybody of any age close to mine can remember pulling cold bottles out of the ice water. You don't need the ability to make ice in one of those just to keep it cool enough to prolong shiner life.

Even an old refrigerator laid on its back and blocked up enough for air to circulate under through the coils and with any holes blocked by aquarium type silicone caulk to stop any leakage might just work fine. There used to be quite a demand for old refrigerator liners caulked up like that to provide enough room for the spawning of larger aquariums fish such as angels and some of the cichlids or even for goldfish.

You can still get "apartment sized" refrigerators with or without an internal freezer compartment that might work for that. Just turn off the freezer part or turn it way down and you might not need anything else. Or one of the smaller cheaper chest model freezers, some of which have drains and some don't. Check your local Kmart, or building supply super store. Or for those of you who love Wally World, you can probably find just such a device there.

There are all kinds of options for this sort of cooling device for one's shiners. If I were to do this I would just get a chest model freezer and turn the cooling up to as warm as it could go, after making sure that it would hold water, and caulking it up with aquarium grade silicone if it didn't. Pretty much ready to use right out of the shipping carton.

BUT be aware that your cooled shiners will have to be brought back to something close to the water temperatures you are going to fish in, and any new additions to your holding tanks would have to be gradually cooled as well. Abrupt warming or cooling can kill your bait just as quickly as too warm can wreak havoc in your holding tanks. The bait fish cannot take abrupt warming any more than they can take abrupt cooling. And bait buckets in the warmest weather cannot be overcrowded, should be insulated, and well aerated and even then you will get significant loss during a day's fishing in hot weather.

Those of you with installed minnow wells in your boats have another problem which is cooling down the lake water you pump into them sufficiently to keep your bait going while fishing. That likely means more than just insulation, too, although a few milk jugs full of frozen water added when you fill the tanks at the lake might be enough to get you started. Here I am assuming you will have to come with empty tanks and pump them dry when you leave which is a legal requirement in a lot of areas to prevent the spread of some of the worst invasive species, and that also means discarding the unused portion of the bait you bring with you also when you leave. If that doesn't apply where you fish, the problem is less acute and you can be more generous with what you bring with you.

All in all I find that using plastics is a whole lot less hassle and is just as effective and generally more so in most, if not all, cases as live bait anyway, but if you really must keep bulk shiners around all year there are ways to keep down the natural mortality of crowded minnows kept in warm weather, at least during storage.