Cannibalistic Minnows?

[TheManInBlack]

I bought an aerator last year so I can keep my minnows alive for two weekends, so I can get two uses out of the ten day window.
This year, I have noticed that every day I seem to get a few dead minnows, and they appear to have their tails chewed off or sections of their backs or undersides missing.  This seems to be especially true with the Niagara minnows I buy.  Are they resorting to cannibalism?  I don't remember this happening last year.

Does anyone feed the minnows to prevent this from happening?  If so, what do you feed them?
Also, what is the best temperature to keep the minnows at?  My choices are my basement, which is about 60 degrees, or my garage which is about 5-10 warmer than the outside.  The problem with the garage is that when it is really cold outside, the water in my bucket freezes up.

Thanks.

[drowndin dots]

    they are starving to death 

[TheManInBlack]

they are starving to death

That is what I figured, which is why I also asked what people feed 'em!

[drowndin dots]

     flake food would be a good start , but they will still nip on theyre dead partners even with a full belly 

[drew43]

minnows are like BEER. 35 to 40 deg is best. keep em in the fridge. the wife will love it!!!! just like the worms... In all seriousness i keep mine in my garage on an aerator. temps vary from 45 to 60 deg. i have no problem keeping them 10 to 14 days. in fact i find myself buying bait just to keep my paper legal. i'm sure that some of my bait has lasted at least a month. and no, i'm not gonna tag my minnows and track thier captivity lifespan. non varying temps are important, i don't feed them, they seem to take care of that themselves. i would tend to think that you don't have a problem with  bigger fish eating little fish?

[TheManInBlack]

The problem I have been having is that 90% of them have been dying before the next weekend.  I didn't have this problem last year, but then again I was getting my bait at a different bait shop last year.  It was a great place, but unfortunately it closed.  It appears that his minnows were either healthier or better fed (or both!).

I figured that the lower temps would be better, maybe slow down their metabolism a bit and they wouldn't be so aggressive (they seem to be much more active in the basement where it is warmer).  Unfortunately, my bucket was freezing over in the garage when we had those cold spells earlier.  The fridge isn't really an option.  With a family of four, there isn't really room to spare (and I don't think my wife would go for it all - she wasn't happy the day she opened up the container of grubs accidentally! ).

Between the electricity spent on the aerator and the cost of feeding them (if that is what it takes to keep most of them alive), it probably is just cheaper to dump them and get new minnows each week...

[hrdcore]

No need to feed them it just adds more work having to change water.

[hrdcore]

No need to feed them it just adds more work having to change water.

I can keep them alive 4 2 weeks.Change ur water every other day,u'll be fine

[1lurker]

I keep mine in the garage and use a cheap electric aerator for an aquarium and add shad keeper to the water. Most important is to change the water every 2-4 days. Their poop has a bacteria in it that is fatal to the fish at medium to high levels. I still have large Pike shiners I bought Christmas week.

[jekross42]

we use an old fishtank and even the filter and bubbler for it, it keeps them alive the water moving and they keep alive pretty well, no need to feed them like you said they like to eat their dead buddies, we keep ours in the garage, its a little  harder to keep them from freezing on the ice but they dont get the temperature shock like they would from the warm to cold water, and lastly if you have city water the chlorine and flouride they put in it could be doing a number on them. we have well water so they seem to do ok in it. hope that helps

[drew43]

i'm pretty sure its the temp changes that mess them up, don't you guys remember having fish tanks when you were kids, your mom bought you that new fish and you couldnt wait to watch it swim around in the tank...... so instead of putting the bagged fish in the tank and letting it acclimate, you let it into the tank and watched it float. think about it... you learned how to keep little fish alive when you were in 5th grade. now you posess the ability to stay focused long enough to actually do it....NO extreme changes keeps bait alive. put them in an insulated bait cooler, or somehow insulate the one youve got. it should help slow the 'shock' they get from the changing outside temps.

[hrdcore]

I did away with the fish tank and use five gallon buckets instead,just easier to clean. As far as city water i fill three 5 gallon buckets at a time. Bait shop water go's in one and the others fill with city water. Evaporation of chlorine takes place and ur good to go. Never had any bad die offs using this method. I believe theres some additive that u can buy as well but i never do. Tightlines

[carcaju]

they will bite on dead minnows i have had that happen for years but just keep the water changed and they should do fine

[TheManInBlack]

you learned how to keep little fish alive when you were in 5th grade. now you posess the ability to stay focused long enough to actually do it

Trust me, that ain't the problem!  Whenever I change the water, I fill a new bucket, and put them side-by-side overnite, and run the aerator in the new one for about 8 hours before doing the transfer.  So the temps of the two buckets should be the same, and the new water should have lots of oxygen.  I usually change the water every 3 days.  I am not in the city, and my water worked fine last year.

I didn't think feeding them would keep them from biting their dead bubbies, I was thinking it might keep their buddies from dying (if they are starving to death!).  I don't mind that they nibble on the dead ones, but it seems to muck up the water.  And I am sure have dead ones decomposing in there can't good for the rest of the minnows and the water quality.

I think I have just gotten into some batches of bad minnows from the new shops I have been trying.  Like I said, I never had these problems with the minnows I used to get from my old place.

[hrdcore]

Were have u been buying ur minnows from Man in black? Just bout 6 doz from Mitchels today for the sodus tourney. Hope i dont have any probs with them.

[crayfishbob]

I think the problem you are experiencing is the minnows have either ich or fungus on them. The missing body parts is probably more rotted off than ate off. Minnows that have been hit by fish before they are cought or mishandled lose thier scales and the fungus gets to them making them weak and die.

Even the best optimum conditions cannot save or regenerate minnows in those conditions. Yes, good conditions do help, but I personally saw bad minnows  ( yes emerald shiners) on a grand scale that were distributed this season that should have never gone on the market.

[Fontona19]

I cant blame fish for eating other fish. They taste so good.  On a serious note, just keep changing the water, and you will be fine.

[jekross42]

might just be bad minnows, good luck
ive had rosie reds and emerald shiners do fine with my method, we dont even change the water as much as we should
but good luck and hope you get to use all 10 of those days for your bait

[TheOutdoorsman]

Fish will bite at sickly fish.  Maybe you have some sickly minnows?  Also, any fairly large ones might try to eat, or at least bully the smaller ones.  It's a fish-eat-fish world out there, even in a bucket...so you might want to separate out any that are much larger than the rest if you have any.

[IFISHY]

Believe. It or not I sell fish for a living and it sounds like fin rot that's a fungus that they get. One infected minnow will spread it to the whole buckets in under an hour.  Probably coming from your supplier any stessor like being put in a buckets will make it take off also if your buckets stays damp it can live in there for months. Dry your buckets for a week you can use a capfull of bleach and let that soak for an hour in a full buckets but if u don't rinse thourougly it will be bad.  You can get a bottle of treatment for finrot at a pet store its cheap works real well and will store from year to year

[TheManInBlack]

Believe. It or not I sell fish for a living and it sounds like fin rot that's a fungus that they get. One infected minnow will spread it to the whole buckets in under an hour.  Probably coming from your supplier any stessor like being put in a buckets will make it take off also if your buckets stays damp it can live in there for months. Dry your buckets for a week you can use a capfull of bleach and let that soak for an hour in a full buckets but if u don't rinse thourougly it will be bad.  You can get a bottle of treatment for finrot at a pet store its cheap works real well and will store from year to year

Thanks, that's good to know.  I was wondering if maybe my bucket became contaminated somehow.  Based on what you said, it certainly sounds like a possibility.