Help.... first timer in the holding tank world

I'm tired of having to chunk my left of minnows and I was able to get a 20 gallon aquarium and it had a "aquarium powerhead pump" that came with it... trying to stay as cheap as possible... I fill it with well water from the house and turned the pump on and threw my leftover minnows in by day 4 I may have lost 10 at most but water turned very cloudy... I know nothing about a aquarium never had one growing up so I'm clueless as to what needs to happen... I chunked the minnows and cleaned the tank out to start over but I wanna get a little more info before diving in again... any help will be useful


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Change your water and how many left overs are you trying to put in it

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I normally buy 1/4 at the time so as my leftovers prolly 20-25... you change out all the water at once or just 50%


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My thoughts are after a few trips I'll use the ones in my tank then start over


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I change about half in my tank every 2-3 days what temp is your water

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It's empty now... what temp does yours run?


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65

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Can get all kinds of problems if water gets to warm. 65 is about as hot as you want it.
Get one of these. https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcos...um-thermometer

What do you use to keep it cool?


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I have put frozen water bottles or milk jugs filled with water in the tanks to keep them cooler when I was keeping minnows.

I have a pump that circulates water and I freeze milk jugs or bottles and then cut the plastic off and it over flows in that tank my tank is just 2 old coolers with lids that keep the ice for a day or 2 pretty easy I have it all taken apart now for the move to the new house

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Here's what I tried and didn't work.
A fountain/pond pump with hose going to a coil of hose in a fridge, hose dumps back into tank. Didn't cool the tank very well.
A fountain/pond pump with hose going to a coil of hose in a freezer, hose dumps back into tank. Got the tank to 62 on 85 degree days, but everything in the freezer melted.

I think my best option is go to the bait shop and ask the man to look at his setup... I do know that he doesn't use ice jug nor does he have a fridge or freezer in the room where the minnows are... so I guess imma go try to steal his tactics and report back


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I did notice that he was using a aerator and his filter is a Rubbermaid tub filled with pea gravel and he does use "better bait" and "foam off"


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by ClancyS89

I think my best option is go to the bait shop and ask the man to look at his setup... I do know that he doesn't use ice jug nor does he have a fridge or freezer in the room where the minnows are... so I guess imma go try to steal his tactics and report back


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Post back I am not sure how he would keep the water chilled I know where I buy mine they are in a deep freezer

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Ask about his filter system I need to upgrade mine I have been using an old pool filter

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Pea gravel is probably a biofilter


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I built the filter out of a half of a plastic drum, and a five gallon bucket with a lid. The bucket had holes drilled in the bottom to allow the water to filter up through the rocks. Inside the bucket was filter material rolled up ( I used bulk airconditioner filter) the water was pumped into the top center of the bucket. The bucket was placed in the drum. Around the bucket was landscape lava rocks( being pourous they have a lot more surface area for the benificial bacteria to colonize) be sure to wash the rocks or you will have rock dust in your tank and kill your minnows. The water overflowed out of the drum and back to the tank. Total capacity of the system was approximately 100 gallons. I would keep up to five pounds of minnows healthy happy and lively. I had to clean the filter about once a season. I did not keep minnows in the heat of the summer. Usually kept them from September to June. Fed them a few Goldfish flakes about twice a week. The more water in a system the more stable its temperatures will be. I never added cooling to allow me to keep them through the summer because I didnt get to fish much then

You should not feed bait as it dirties the water . A filter would help and/or change water ever few days

I live on the lake and am thinking of starting to keep my unused minnows and really unsure where to start. I've made a hardware cloth cage and left them in the lake inside that but after a few days algea seems to start to get stuck in it. Any ideas of a better system that's cheap would be greatly appreciated

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I've been using a freezer for years with circulating pump with media and charcoal filters.
I run several air aereators pumps and have a timer to run freezer a hour and off an hour keeps temp around 55 degrees except in winter months l will regulate as needed.
Change out about 50% of water everyday or every other day.
I currently have downsized my tank to a 5 cu ft freezer which will hold 2 13x13x21 wally world laundry baskets.
I but shiners by the pound and this keeps a pound of minnows small or mediums well.
Every morning as l am loading minnows in 5 gallon bucket l fill bucket with cold water from freezer as to not change water temps.
Then l add lake water back to freezer tank.
I use a double 12 volt aerator l wired in boat to run air tubes to bucket.
I carry around a dozen or more frozen soda bottles in ice chest to add to bucket all day long to keep water cool.
Colder water holds more oxygen but you have keep wayer oxygenated.


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I have a 35 gal plastic drum mounted to my dock with small holes drilled in it for water to flow in and out. It gets alge on it but that does not matter. I put my left over shiners in there and when I need some I just go dip them out.

Growing up, we used to keep leftover minnows in the aquarium in my father's house. I don't remember doing anything special, standard aquarium with aerator and filter. When using tap water, you need to let the water stand in the aquarium for a couple of days to let the chlorine evaporate out before putting any fish in. We just let the water be at room temperature, which fluctuated between 65 - 75 depending on the season. It may be that the only minnows we used were shiners and that other minnows may be more sensitive to temperatures, but we never really had any fallout. Kept them just like any other freshwater aquarium fish.