Bait tank procedure

[Papa Sly]

OK guys here goes nothing. I have read meny articles on bait tanks. What I use now is a 140 gallon cooler kept outside. I live on a lake and do a 50% water change weekly with lake water. I use a 540 gallom per hour pond pump/filter combo with bio balls and 2 filters in it and it pumps the water after filtered through plastic pipe with a couple hundred holes in it to airate. two main questions:
1- Since I live on a lake and change out 50% of water with fresh water wekly do I even need to filter or would just a good quality airator be enough.
2-Second should I use finer shiner to prevent any infections and streangthen the shiners scales.

 I should say at this time I am keeping wild caught shiners and not store bought.

[HWeber]

Shiners are pretty sensitive when compared to other minnows. A quality airator may be enough depending on how many shiners. That being said if things head south you'll lose shiners quick, the filter would be a good insurance policy imo

[Walted]

I know my question doesn't answer yours but can you somehow keep your minnows in the lake? I live on a river and had tried all kinds of different minnow tank setups before I finally decided to just go put them in the river. I use a compost tumbler barrel. Works a lot better for minnows than it did for compost. Anyway I have never had a less maintenance minnow system. The only time I do anything to it is when I take some out or put more in.

[Papa Sly]

I thought about that with an old washing machine tub but dont know how to keep it from freezing over. In a stream its moving so that wouldnt be an issue.

[kpd145]

OK guys here goes nothing. I have read meny articles on bait tanks. What I use now is a 140 gallon cooler kept outside. I live on a lake and do a 50% water change weekly with lake water. I use a 540 gallom per hour pond pump/filter combo with bio balls and 2 filters in it and it pumps the water after filtered through plastic pipe with a couple hundred holes in it to airate. two main questions:
1- Since I live on a lake and change out 50% of water with fresh water wekly do I even need to filter or would just a good quality airator be enough.
2-Second should I use finer shiner to prevent any infections and streangthen the shiners scales.

 I should say at this time I am keeping wild caught shiners and not store bought.

Pump and water changes are good Mike, finer shiner wouldn't hurt especially if your storing pounds of bait.. I would check the conditions of the shiners after a close to a week to see how they are doing and see how the water looks, the bio balls will help a lot, sounds like you get enough air, as long as the shiners are not gulping air at the surface, they are ok.

Maybe add in a bubbler to provide more saturated oxygen and to help minimize it freezing over.

I have had my air stone form ice so be mindful of that.

metabolisms are going to slow to a crawl in the cold temps so the water will stay fresher a lot longer

[fish/hunt4ever]

Had a guy that lived on a lake around here and kept minnows in the lake but he built a 4x4x8 foot box that he sunk in the lake by a dock and covered it with ply wood and when he opened the lid might have to chip some ice but the top might have had some insulation do not remember that well if you have power and could run aerators there that would help keep the opening to get minnows out, just a thought I keep them in dryer drums and taped the center up so no holes for them to escape.

[Shack man Shoney]

I have tried to keep minnows a couple times before and my best advice is to start with keeping the population down in the beginning to get the tank right.  I wanted and tried to keep 20 dozen a couple years back and short story long I got a "deal" on 100 dozen... and well some's good mores better???  But not with live bait unless your running a bait shop.  I haven't tried it since.  Good luck.

[DR.SPECKLER]

 i had a bait tank a few years back with chubs and shiners.knew nothing about cycling the tank just like a aquarium.i had bait dying left and right.then i researched fishless cycling which involves adding pure ammonia to the tank and testing the water for a few weeks waiting on good bacteria to break down the ammonia.which ammonia is what fish waste is and that is what kills them.i cycled my 55 gallon plastic drum and had bait last forever after that with no water changes.hell a few lucky chubs that avoided the net lived for 2 years.i even fed them dried shrimp.i kept water cool by putting frozen milk jugs in the tank in summer.it was a process but glad i learned.you can also cycle the tank using a few hardy baitfish but they will probably die before the bacteria show up in the filter.

[Agronomist_at_IA]

One of the tricks to having a good bait tank is to eliminate all and any metal in the system. That means even a small screw or washer cannot be used.