How to Keep Bait Minnows Alive at Home & 6 Reasons They Die

Keeping live bait minnows alive at home for a future fishing trip is actually pretty easy. There are six big reasons why live bait minnows die in your bucket, and knowing these reasons will help you avoid them and keep minnows for weeks or months instead of hours. Don't buy new minnows at the bait store every trip. Keep them alive at home for your next trip instead.
#learntofish
#minnows
#livebait

[nx]

Great info. I will be implementing what you've taught on here.

[claytonbusbey]

I've been working in the aquarium industry for nearly two decades. Just aerating water is no longer a good way of getting rid of chlorine. Most water purification plants have switched to using chloramine instead of chlorine. Chloramine is much more persistent and does require a chemical to remove it. You can get the stuff super cheaply at pet stores. Seachem's Prime is a great example of this. As a bonus, it will also bind up any ammonia in the water, making it non-toxic.

[kayakfishingtactics]

Hands down the best 6 minutes on the internet for learning how to keep your minnows alive. Awesome content. Thank you! You've got a seminar of information packed into 6 minutes of easy to follow directions!

[-Scotty]

In Australia you need to keep your minnows in a cooler that's insulated because soon as the water heats up the fish will start to vomit, when that happens you don't have long to water change and get the temp down or they'll die. Good video with lots of helpful information.

[robertlee]

I started a Ruby Red minnow farm back in 2010 & 14 years later it’s still growing strong . Most of my friends & family come to see me if they need minnows, I have a great farm going so I don’t need to sell them to my friends & family I just give them away . I have filtration systems, cooling pads to keep the temperature just right so they can breed as needed, a good & strong food source, I keep the water clean & there’s plenty of hiding places for them to breed or hide . I have them on a dim light timer like the sun is coming up or going down, it comes on & gos off automatically . I use a medication for them that gives them a good slime covering & use fish antibiotics to keep them very healthy & Hardy . I have sucker fish that helps me keep the tanks clean & eats just about everything that’s left over & keeps algae off of everything so that’s a big help with keeping the tank clean . Small gravel helps with breeding also as well as clay pots for them to make homes in . I, m up to 6, 200 gallon tanks & I don’t need much more than that & this all started from me & my cousin having leftover minnows & it just grew from there .

[GenXMafia]

Here is another hack. Do not use square containers! I am sure many of you by now have seen the blue plastic 55 gal barrels you can buy these days. Simply cut one in half and follow all other directions in this video. The fish will tend to swim in circles and not hit their heads against the walls at all! Every Striper guide down here on Lake Cumberland, KY have round live wells for their bait (shad) for this very reason. This will increase their lives significantly! 😊

[erniefroehlich]

Very good information. If the water the minnows are in gets too warm, they will die quickly. I keep mine in between fishing trips in a container placed in a mini fridge with a small hole drilled through the top to pass the aerator line through and I keep it set at 55 degrees. I use a small cooler as a bait well with an empty Gatorade bottle filled with filtered water and frozen. Keep your minnows cool and they will last a lot longer

[mastersoutdoors]

This is whiteout a doubt the best “how to minnow” video on YouTube . Thank you for the very informative video

[hockingangler]

I just started farming creek chubs and have lost over 5 dozen....probably could have been less if I had watched this first. Great video thanks for making this.

[RipperYouTubeOfficial]

Do minnows have to have an aerator, or can they breathe from above the surface like a goldfish can?

[Rick-the-Swift]

I've kept rosy red minnows in my aquarium, with no filter and no air pump for a few months now and they are all still doing quite well. Some lessons I learned, some were harder than others.
1. put rocks and aquatic plants in the water first, well before the minnows enter. The plants are great at filtering toxins from the water, but many, like java moss can change the water chemistry very quickly, which minnows hate. Rocks can also change the water chemistry. Also, adding rocks and plants to the water after you've added the minnows will only stress them out, after all who wants a giant hand coming in and out of their new home?
2. Give plenty of time to acclimate the minnows to their new tank- this means allowing the temperature of their bagged water to reach the same temp as the tank water, and it also means introducing the tank water chemistry to their gills very slowly and gradually. Just dumping all them into the tank without proper acclimation will almost certainly kill some of the fish and will guaranteed stress 100% of them.
3. If you see you're fish are stressed and trying to frantically escape the tank- even if they have good shelter, then you should very slowly cover the tank so that is it only dimly lit. Keep it covered for at least a day, and when you go to uncover it, do that very slowly as well.
4. Feed them flake food minimally, every other day, like stated in the video, but also let them hunt and forage for food. This is again where the plants are so important, as they will harbor all kinds of microscopic things for them to munch on. Allowing them to graze and forage is a great way to reduce their stress and improve their quality of life.
5. Add a bit of leaf litter and/or decaying plant material- again it's best to do this first, and only add a little at a time if added after the fish are in. I know it sounds like work, but it's honestly best to boil or at least soak the leaves for a long time to leach any tannins or other toxic chemicals from them. Adding too many un-boiled/un-soaked leaves too fast will surely change the water chemistry very quickly, likely stressing and/or killing some or all of your fish.
6. Add a little aquarium salt, or sea salt if that's all you have. Avoid the iodized stuff. And don't over do it. Dissolving a pinch or two of salt into a small cup of water then slowly adding that to the tank helps their immune system by giving them the trace minerals they need, and it also helps restore water quality, which reduces their stress levels.

Key take aways- it's best to have their holding tank fully prepared with plants, rocks, gravel, leaf and plant decay well in advance of adding the fish. Acclimate them VERY slowly. Give them privacy with places to hide and forage. Avoid abrupt changes to water temperature and chemistry. And add a little aquarium safe salt to boost their immune systems.

Hope someone may find this post helpful. Happy fish keeping 😊

[isabellaasselmeier]

I never would’ve thought to look up how to keep minnows live, but a great skill to know

[Towner]

“How to keep you minnows happy and healthy before you stab them in the face with a hook” 🤣🤣

[DtKnize]

Wow! Awesome information Nat! I don't know how much money myself and my friends have wasted throwing away dead minnows. We were thinking of buying a cheap clear glass aquarium but the opaque container is super cheap and a great idea. So many times my wife and I wanted to go fishing but the bait shop was closed or too far to drive, now we can have minnows on demand. Can I mix different sizes and types of minnows in the same container?

[SmokeyBear]

Many cities use chloramine instead of chlorine in water treatment, and sloshing the water or boiling it will not remove the chloramine like it would chlorine. You need to use either reverse osmosis, catalytic carbon filtration (NOT the typical granular activated carbon Brita pitcher filter), or an aquarium tap water conditioner (active ingredient: sodium thiosulfate). You can check with your city's water department about what they use in their process. An alternative in a cold climate is to melt some clean snow.

[mariofilippi]

You made some great points about how to prevent minnow deaths. Thanks for the video, enjoyed it very much.

[girlbuu]

"Stress"
Flashing back to playing with them as a kid and kind of shifting my eyes around nervously remembering my grandfather having no idea why they kept dying.

[FoulMouthFishing]

Man this video couldve saved me so much money and headache over the years lol great vid thank you!

[ENNA]

I've been keeping my left over minnows in a black container with an bubbler and theyve been doing great with no casualties. In the past, I've put them in bright or see through containers...and they ended up dying from stress.

[dalehammond]

Good sensible information. I used to trap minnows from our lake to use as bait in our lake. They'd live about 2 weeks and all died at the same time. I fed them and used an aerator. I probably had too much current flow and exhausted them. Thanks