keeping minnows alive

Not just any minnows, but those emerald shiners. You know, the ones that start dying before you even launch the boat after buying them at the bait shop or netting them yourself! I'm sort of on a mission to having my own stock of live minnows ready to fish with.

So I have a funny story, I go back to the foot of ferry to net some more minnows. I brought another new bucket with me, do you remember my story of the last time, where the knot untied and the bucket floated away? Anyway, I bring a small bucket to get water, and my larger 20 gallon bucket that's designed to keep bait alive. It has an aerator with it, a dc powered one designed to run off of a car battery. I get a bunch of minnows, and probably 10 gallons of some sparkling niagara river water in my vehicle, and fire up the aerator. Everything works, and this coming from equipment that has been sitting on a shelf, never used, for at least 10 years probably more. I make it home, about 40 minutes, and check on my minnows, they are all alive! Nice! I disconnect the battery, and bring my bucket inside, down into the basement. Note to self: maybe not so much water next time. So in the short amount of time it took me to get the bucket inside and down in the basement, I see about a dozen minnows belly up inside. Just like that. So I connect my aerator again, this time on an ac adapter. Check in half hour, all minnows are back alive. Even the belly up ones, they revived. Yes! Check the next day, all minnows look great, hardly any hanging around the top of the water which is a good sign. On day 2, I get home from work and my wife says, "what's that smell downstairs?". Now I knew that a little paint thinner had gotten on to the basement floor so I told her that was probably it, and in all honesty that's what I thought it was. So I head downstairs to check and as soon as I opened the door I smell dead fish! Uh oh this doesn't look good. I go check on the minnows, they are all dead! All of them! Thank goodness I live in the country, sort of, and put those puppies in my big compost pile. Nice rancid minnow water, lovely smell haha.

So here is what I think I did wrong:
1) I had the bucket sealed up tight (it's able to do that). Even though the aerator was working properly, what I am finding out is that minnows produce nitrogen as a waste gas, and this needs to be vented.
2) In addition to aerating, I have to use some type of filter, to filter out the waste products.

I think what happened was the ammonia, nitrogen, etc that got generated from the minnows eventually just built up in the water until it became toxic and just wiped them out.

Anybody keep their own minnows alive?

My brother kept some alive in aquarium with filter and aeration for weeks.

I got minnows yesterday PM. put them in a cooler with 2 aerators & this AM they were all belly up & they did stink & looked like a minnow milkshake !! Not nice. Was a waste of time & effort. ended up buying some to fish!

i keep them in a 5gal bucket with an aerator but i drill a bunch of holes in the lid they stay alive

I use cooler & aerator and keep them for days. Water temperature and or chlorine is main enemy of a tank full of minnows. Keep a few frozen 2 ltr bottles in freezer, drop one in cooler and change it out every 12 hours or so and always remember city water contains way to much chlorine and will result in certain death if you try to keep them in it. Hope this helps.

I used to keep my minnows at home in a 55 gallon plastic drum. Stone aerator at the bottom with a charcoal bag hanging in it, and a recirculating pump to keep the water moving. So I'd just go get a scoop out when I needed. Still had to do water changes cause there were no places in the drum for the good nitrogen to live and grow on.

Yeah I figured that a filter of some type was needed, I got one now to hook up and try again. Rumor is that the minnows are hard to come by at ferry, but I will stop by and see. I think the colder you can keep the minnows the better, slower metabolism. Agreed on the chlorine being bad, for sure, that's why I used niagara river water just to keep things the same for them. (at first) Happy Fathers day!

Ferry st. had about a trillion minnows when I was there the other day.

If you leave chlorinated water sit in a bucket for 24 hrs it will dechlorinate. Also you can buy chlorine remover from the pet store that quickly makes tap water usable. Yes the colder the better for the minnys. I used to feed them oatmeal. Also keep In mind how many minnows you have per gallon of water. If you cram to many at once. They will polute the water as you found out. Charcoal is the key to removing the ammonia. The filter just gives the good bacteria a fast place to grow and do its job. But that still takes time. So water changes are a necessity. That's why I used a 55 gallon plastic drum. To get technical, fish produce waste ( ammonia ) through their gills everytime they breathe. Good bacteria breaks down that ammonia into nitrites which is then converted to nitrates. That is why well established aquariums do well. They naturally break the ammonia down and convert it. But there also isn't hundreds of fish. So there is a balance. With minnows we want as many as we can get and keep to cut trips down. But a large gallon container is needed to keep the water quality from going bad quickly. The pet store also sells ammonia absorbing charcoal in big containers. I used a pantyhose foot and used half the container in it and hung it over the edge. Got the biggest aerator pump I could find and the biggest round stone for aeration. Then used a submersible powerhead to circulate the water. Along with regular water changes I kept 300 -500 minnows alive in my plastic 55 g drum. With minimal loss of fish.

Buy them at the bait store, 10 bucks worth is enough for 3 people for the day.
Take a i gallon zip-lock baggie into the bait shop, put the minnows in the bag. Seal the air out of the bag and put them in a small lunch size insulated cooler packed in ice. Once on the water I get enough out of the bag and put in a small container. Only get out enough for 10-15 minutes or so. Keeps some ice in the little container if its warm out, then dump out the water as it gets warm.
No aereator, no 6 gallon bucket, no minnow net, no batteries, the minnows die too fast most days anyway. This has become my way most days the last 4-5 years. They are easy to handle, not flopping around. Just keep them good and cold when you put them on the hook.