My last post showed some minnows I harvested from the local (adjacent) bayou.
Apparently, there was a small flaw in my plans. The minnows like to school together and as part of the schooling process, they decided to swim (as a group) too close to the sump pickup tube in the bottom of the fish tank.
Even though the pickup tube has a filter inside the tube to keep small fish from being sucked out of the tank, these minnows were tiny and went right through the screen. I did not witness this but this morning when I checked the tank, there were only about 5 of the 25 minnows left in the tank. I think they swam in a school too close to the pickup tube and were vacuumed into the filter bed.
So my next plan is to replace them with more minnows from the bayou.
I have found a minnow trap at the local Wally World and will bait and see what swims into the trap. I figure I can use this method to do some more ‘trial’ fish stocking at no cost.
Of course, before I put more into the tank I am going to put a finer filter into the pickkup tube to keep the small guys out of the filter bed.
I’ll add some more photos in a few days.