Keeping Minnows Alive – Home Setup

Thought I would report on my recent home minnow setup. Glad to say Ive managed to keep a scoop of crappies and fatheads alive for over 2 weeks now. Total cost of the setup was about $20

My setup:

10 G coleman cooler with a lid. Drilled a hole near the top to insert bubbler tube. 110 V bubbler. I keep a 5 G bucket of lake water that I use to change out the water periodically. So far ive only changed out the water 3 or 4 times in 2 weeks. The room I keep the minnows in is in my basement so it stays cool. It also happens to be the same room with my deep freeze in it, so I have 3 Gatorade bottles filled with frozen water that I rotate and put in the minnow cooler every day. Setup is working out real slick. The real question I have though is how will this setup support Shiners? Only time will tell.

I have two scoops of fatheads and a scoop of crappie minnows in a 5 gal pal with a bubbler for the past 4 weeks without changing the water. Fatheads and crappie minnows are hard to kill.

Lake shiners would last 3-5 days in this environment. Lake shiners in general do not last very long in captivity. In perfect conditions I get 10-14 days. Golden shiners or grass shiners (common shiner) are much more hardy. If you keep your water clean and cool as you have been doing you should get a month out of regular shiners.

crappie55369 wrote:

I keep a 5 G bucket of lake water that I use to change out the water periodically.

Transporting lake water is illegal, and if you’re bringing your minnows home after a day of fishing, make sure you have bottled/tap water with you in your vehicle to swap out whatever water is in your bait bucket in the boat. I don’t use live bait often, but I was told by an AIS person that even the water in a leech container is supposed to be swapped out, which is ridiculous to me, but I can understand a minnow bucket.

blank wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>crappie55369 wrote:</div>
I keep a 5 G bucket of lake water that I use to change out the water periodically.

Transporting lake water is illegal.

below is what I found for the law. to me I don’t think im in violation of anything if I drive my car down to the lake and fill up a 5 G bucket. the law states “the following regulations apply to the transportation of water in boats…

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crappie55369 wrote:

below is what I found for the law. to me I don’t think im in violation of anything if I drive my car down to the lake and fill up a 5 G bucket. the law states “the following regulations apply to the transportation of water in boats…

I would disagree.
This is under Definitions on the MN Statute page
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=84D
“Subd. 18a.Water-related equipment. “Water-related equipment” means a motor vehicle, boat, watercraft, dock, boat lift, raft, vessel, trailer, tool, implement, device, or any other associated equipment or container, including but not limited to portable bait containers, live wells, ballast tanks except for those vessels permitted under the Pollution Control Agency vessel discharge program, bilge areas, and water-hauling equipment that is capable of containing or transporting aquatic invasive species, aquatic macrophytes, or water”.

Some other Q&A info:
http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/eco/invasives/q_and_a_drain_plug_law_20110609.pdf

TheCrappieFisherman wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>crappie55369 wrote:</div>

below is what I found for the law. to me I don’t think im in violation of anything if I drive my car down to the lake and fill up a 5 G bucket. the law states “the following regulations apply to the transportation of water in boats…

I would disagree.
This is under Definitions on the MN Statute page
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=84D
“Subd. 18a.Water-related equipment. “Water-related equipment” means a motor vehicle, boat, watercraft, dock, boat lift, raft, vessel, trailer, tool, implement, device, or any other associated equipment or container, including but not limited to portable bait containers, live wells, ballast tanks except for those vessels permitted under the Pollution Control Agency vessel discharge program, bilge areas, and water-hauling equipment that is capable of containing or transporting aquatic invasive species, aquatic macrophytes, or water”.

Some other Q&A info:
http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/eco/invasives/q_and_a_drain_plug_law_20110609.pdf

Interesting. Yeah that would seem to cover my scenario. Maybe I will need to consider other tricks like leaving tap water outside for a few days and using that or picking up some of that water treatment stuff. Thanks for educating me. For what it’s worth the water and bait i am using won’t be going anywhere but back into the same place it came from

I’ve been completely replacing the water in my cooler with water straight out of the tap since Sunday. The rainbows are all fine with this but the shiners all died just about immediately after the first hose fill up. Next week I’ll try tap water left out in a bucket for awhile first and report back if nobody else has first.

crappie55369 wrote:

Interesting. Yeah that would seem to cover my scenario. Maybe I will need to consider other tricks like leaving tap water outside for a few days and using that or picking up some of that water treatment stuff. Thanks for educating me. For what it’s worth the water and bait i am using won’t be going anywhere but back into the same place it came from

No problem. I set a small bucket out to collect rain water when my worm container is getting dry, that wouldn’t work to well for a whole cooler though

The translation from the rules and statute to the synopsis can be confusing and frustrating at times.

I know the DNR folks with their feet on the ground have been working hard with the folks in St Paul that write “the book”. It’s much better then it was…but as always, room for improvement.

The amount of chlorine, fluoride and other chemicals vary from water supply to water supply. Just because I can use tap water to hold my bait will not mean you will have any luck…unfortunately.

You can just buy water treatment stuff at any pet store…even Walmart. Aquarium owners deal with it all the time.