The First Hour After Your Live Minnows Arrive

A box of live minnows is perishable, and most of what decides the outcome happens in the first hour after the delivery driver leaves. Anderson Minnow Farm packs and ships its fish from Lonoke, Arkansas, by FedEx overnight, so they've spent a night in transit by the time you open the box. What you do next matters more than anything else in the chain.

Set up before the box arrives

The most common mistake is waiting for the box to start. Your holding tank, bucket or stock tank should be filled, treated and running before the fish are in your hands. Live orders ship on Mondays and Thursdays, which means you can predict the delivery day and do the setup the day before. Gather a dip net, a thermometer and your air supply while you're at it, so nothing sends you hunting through a garage with fish waiting.

The farm lists five handling and care guidelines for its fish. They make a good checklist for that setup:

• Use a well-aerated holding tank.
• Use freshwater.
• Remove chlorine and chloramine from municipal water with a remover.
• Keep the holding tank in shade 24 hours a day, or in an air-conditioned building.
• Remember that the right tank volume depends on the water temperature.

Water is the part people skip

City water is the usual trap. Municipal systems add chlorine or chloramine to keep tap water safe to drink, and both are hard on fish gills. Chlorine will eventually leave water that sits out, but chloramine won't, so letting a bucket stand overnight isn't a dependable fix. A chlorine remover is. The farm's guideline is to treat municipal water with one, and its supply list includes an LCR liquid chlorine remover you can add to the same order as the fish.

Match the temperature too. Float the sealed bag in the holding tank for a while so the water inside the bag and the water around it drift toward each other, then let the fish swim out instead of tipping them into a sudden change. A pocket thermometer, which the farm also sells, takes the guessing out of it.

Air, shade and room to breathe

Aeration is the guideline that's easiest to underbuild. Fish take oxygen out of the water, and a crowded tank uses it up quickly. A tank with no moving water or bubbling air won't give it back fast enough. An air pump and an air stone are cheap insurance. The farm sells a Bubble Box portable air pump, a Bubble Donut air stone and silicone airline tubing, enough to build a working setup for a garage, a shop back room or a truck bed.

Shade and temperature work together. Warm water holds less oxygen and speeds up a fish's metabolism, so a tank in afternoon sun can go from fine to a crisis in a hurry. The farm's rule, shade around the clock or an air-conditioned building, is blunt for a reason. Its fifth guideline says tank volume depends on water temperature. In plain terms, the warmer the water, the more room each fish needs, so you'll want fewer fish per gallon in July than in January.

Keep an eye on the tank through the first evening. Fish that hang at the surface gulping are telling you the water needs more air or less heat. Scoop out any fish that have died so they don't foul the water for the rest. Then leave the tank alone. Constant poking stresses fish more than it helps them.

If something's wrong, act within 24 hours

The farm's guarantee is direct: "We guarantee our fish to arrive alive and healthy." To use it, contact the farm by text, phone call or email within 24 hours, and include photos. The remedy is a refund or an account credit. There are no exchanges, and the instructions in the box must be followed, which is one more reason to read the card in the box before you do anything else. The email address the farm gives for refunds is admin@andersonminnows.com.

Take the photos before you start dipping fish out, with the box, the bag and the fish in the frame. Clear pictures make the conversation short. Write down the time you opened the box so you always know where you stand on the 24 hours.

A practical next step

If it's your first order, set up the tank early, run the air for an hour and treat the water before anything else. Then place the order by 10:00 a.m. Central on a Monday or a Thursday so it ships that day. If you'd rather talk through a setup before ordering, the farm in Lonoke answers at 1-800-20-MINNO (1-800-206-4666).