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Oh Boy herring chatter and it's only October.
The key to keeping herring alive is this.
Remeber the thee A's.
Air - 50 herring in a tank will suck out all the oxygen in no time, you would be surprised. The same will happen in a freshwater pond if you put to many fish in it. I had a goldfish pond in the back yard, to many fish and they started to die off due to lack of oxgyen. Use an air stone from a fish tank.
Amonia - Fish pee just like us. When under stress, they seem to give off more amonia than when not. Use the chemicals available to help keep this under control. Keep Alive works well. I beleive Mike at M&D's sells all that stuff.
Area - Fish need room to swim and keep water mving through there gills. A tank that is 100 gallons and taller than it is wide is not as good as a 100 gallon tank that is wider than it is tall. A wider shallower tank is ideal. Imagine filling up a little kids plastic swimming pool and throwing 50 herring in. Nice, plenty of room for then to swim around, not real deep, but deep enough. Now take that same pool and make it twice as deep and half as wide. Not so good. 50 herring and fish will start to bump into each other.
Colder water seems to work better. I think colder water holds more oxegen than warm water, but not 100 percent sure on that.
The most I had in the tank (300 + gallons) at one time was around 50, only because I kept fishing them, not because they were dying. I only had a few die, and that was towrds the end of the run. The drop outs seem to be alot weaker than the ones going up.
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