Bait Tank information

Yesterday FishingBuddy made me a happy man (don’t take much lately). He dropped of a nice 40 or so year old chest freezer to be used for my bait tank.

I’m looking for anyone that has experiance with holding bait that is willing to share what works and what doesn’t work in keeping the white suckers and 7 inch or less bullheads happy.

Another question is how you keep the water cool enough in the heat of a “normal” summer?

Any and all help is appreciated! Thanks!

PS Gator Hunter…next year I’ll have some bullies for you at the IDA Get ToGether

Brian,

Does the freezer work? you could turn it on it’s highest setting and hopefully the water won’t freeze?

otherwise the more expensive route would be to drop bags of ice in??

i have no clue

Here are a few ideas from what I’ve seen.

1. If you have a well, run a continuous system where cold water comes in at the same rate as it drains.

2. Run a closed system, continuously recirculate the same water in the tank, with a water pump, I would opt for something a little nicer than the standard aerator or bilge variety, as it will be run constantly. As far as keeping it cool… my first thought is try to find a used cold plate, they are used for pressurized beverage systems, keep the plate in the fridge and run your recirculating hoses through the plate.

3. Plug the thing in, see if you can find a setting that won’t put skim ice on the top, and run a plug-in aerator.

One thing to consider is that during the summer months having your bait too cold can be a problem. I have served up many a dozen from our 42 degree tanks, only to have the customer go straight to the 80 degree lake, drop the Flo-Troll in, and 5 minutes later everything is dead. It is important to acclimate your bait to the water before you hook’em up, I usually do it with an oxy-bag.

This is all good, ways that I never thought of! Thanks!

The freezer is not only dead…but I took the compressor out to lighten it up by 100 lbs or better

I’m leaning toward a closed system, had to cap the well a few years back It’s going to be kept outside.

The more fresh well water you can spray on them the better. Well water is always cold and keeps minnows pretty good, but in the heat of summer you will always loose a few.

Jason Erlandson

Dave’s Sportland Bait and Tackle
http://www.sportlandbait.com
Nisswa MN
218-963-2401

Put it in your basement and use well water. They will live a lot longer whether you use a closed system or continuous flow system.

Well from my understanding, it’s not so much the temp of the water as it is the disolved oxygen, which happens to be directly related to temp. My best suggestion is look into a “wet and dry” trickle filter, that should keep you O2 as high as possible, then you can deal with temp if you need to. You’re best advised to check out a filter system either online or even better shop into a tropical fish store and ask them about them. You could actually make one or have someone make one for cheap. Personally I’d just run a pump to up to the filter box, and skip a lot of other stuff these trickle filters normally use. If you want more info, just holler, I doubt this method can be beat, and it’s super, super cheap to run after inital setup. I can tell you a chiller set-up for around a hundred dollars (IF…. you bought everything brand new) real similar to the cold plate idea, only a bit better IMHO.

I worked at world of fish for almost 5 years, I should be able to answer a lot of questions keeping fish in a tank.

I use an old, out of commission, chest freezer for a baitwell. I think I use about 150-160 gallons of water with the bait. The water is out of a well and starts at about 58 degrees if my memory is correct. I’ve stored up to 125 or so bullheads in it at a time.

I punched a drain in the bottom about 1/2 diameter and wish I would have gone bigger because it takes about 10 minutes to drain, maybe longer. I wish I would have put the drain up about 3 inches from the bottom so I could have screwed a screen cover on it. This way your bait won’t be able to stick their little heads in the hole and get you

Another way to get your water out is to use a bilge pump. I just got a 1000 gph pump and it is much faster. Of course you’ll have to have a 12v handy to do this.

My aerator is a plug in Min-O-Aire rated for 8-12 lbs of bait. It uses air stones. Bullheads don’t seem to have a problem with this “underated” unit but the next one will be larger model rated for about 20 lbs of bait. This unit has about 12 months of continuous pumping without a hickup.

I don’t filter my water but change it often, especially at first, when the bait is producing the most waste. I don’t feed my bait and with good care they last 3-4 weeks. I’ve had some in there much longer but they start to get weak and moldy eventually.

I’m interested in a affordable filter system. Affordable is the key word. I always thought you’d have to have a heck of a system to keep up with a hundred bully’s. An ideas?

The warmer the water the more easily it looses oxygen. The baits metabolism speeds up, etc. so I like cooler water.

So in the heat of the summer, your water stays cool enough not to poach them? Or are you just changing it more often?

Scott, outside was my last choice as to where I wanted to keep then, the basement was my second choice and of course my bedroom was my first….
(My wife is one of those women that just can’t take a joke )

My tank is in a shaded area. I don’t worry about the water getting too warm. When is starts to get too cloudy, change it. If you put the freezer on asphalt put some boards under it to distribute the weight.

Punch a hole in for a drain, attach a flexible tube and fix its open end even with the level you want the water to stay at. It’s going to be constantly draining, so put it where you want your water to go – you figure that out. Then fix your garden hose with adjustable spray nozzle so that it sprays in at high velocity and very low volume. This will keep the water aerated and cold. If your water is chlorinated, you may be able to get an inline filter so you can still use it in this way. It may be a “waste of water” but at least it’s not a waste of water that makes your lawn grow and keeps you off the river!

FlatheadWI…I like the way you think! My hose is going to the neighbors yard! He doesn’t fish… he plays golf.

I don’t really want to have a hose going across my yard all summer, if I don’t have too.

MN RST Rider…What would a filtering system run for a 150 gallon tank? I know when I get a pail of a dozen or so bullies, I’ll put them into fresh water and it’s darn near black in just a few hours. If I recall right, after changing it two or three times in a 12 hour period, the water starts staying clearer, then I can get by with changing it every three days or so. I, like Dirk would like a filter system, but I’m afraid the cost would take a couple garcia 7000’s out of the boat…so to speak.

Dirk, I was looking at the next size up that you suggested. I want to place it where the compressor was for the freezer. I’m sure those pumps aren’t water proof but I really don’t want one making all that noise in my office…(the garage) Any reason that wouldn’t work?
Lastly…what about CO build up? Does the changing of the water take care of this before it’s a problem? Stradic suggested a recirculation pump. All I see are the bilge pumps that aren’t made for continuous use. Would I be wasting my money?

Thanks again for everyone’s input!

The bubbling from the air stones will release the Co2 ( I think thats how it works). I put my pump in the garage and then ran long tubes through the wall to the freezer oustide the garage. It is pretty quiet. I don’t see why putting it where the compressor was wouldn’t work though. I put a couple cuts in the sealer strip for the tubes, I didn’t punch another hole in the freezer. Are you going to round the corners?

I do have all winter to work on it…but I thought I would just put up signs…CAUTION Wall Ahead…
Sheet metal will rust. Maybe some thin aluminum?

my aquaculture professor taught us how to make our own bio-filters for minnow tanks…he told us to get a shopping basket and line it with mesh…then take regular plastic forks and bust them all up into little pieces and put into the basket…put the basket just above water level and then get your circulating pump and pump the water over the basket…we made one and it worked for 15-20 dozen minnows in a 100 gallon tank…kept the tank in the garage and we had minnows for all of my college buddies…the only stipulation was that you had to help seine once in a while to be able to use the minnies…with the hose at the bottom of the tank you may be able to get by w/o a pump…just run it back above the tank, there may be enough pressure there to make it work

Looking for some help here…;)

I’m getting all my parts together for my end of winter project. I think I have my wife talked into painting and using a cat stencil on the ouside of the tank/freezer….but here’s what my problem is…

The suckers and bullhead keep running into the corners of the tank and bruising their noses. I’m trying to find the right material to round and soften the corners…any suggestions…remember …can’t rust or be toxic to my little buddies…

Dirk, you mentioned you had a 1/2 in drain and it drained too slow…would you thing 1 1/2 inches would be enough? Or bigger?

Thanks for your help guys…

Brian: how about taking a piece of 3″ PVC that is as long as the tank is high, standing the PVC on its end, and then using a hacksaw to cut it into quarters. For that matter, clamp the PVC in a vise and use a slow jigsaw to run down the lengths, giving you some more accurarte cuts. Use some waterproof epoxy to glue the pieces into place in the corners. Now you have a racetrack rather than a box. If the corners are still to abrupt, use a larger diameter PVC. Whaddya think?

I think that’s a great idea Brookie!

Home Depot, Menards or other home center building supply places sell 4 foot by 8 foot sheets of 1/8 thick fiberglass.Or use plexiglass.

Bend it into the corners kinda like

and silcone em in place. You WILL have to drill hole in the fiberglass or plexi to allow water into the corners.(equalize the pressure on the material) Otherwise the pressure of the water will probably pop it

Hey Thanks Ed! Welcome to the board!

Are you a whisker fisherman too….or just sharing your thoughts with us lowly folks?

I like the second picture…although it maybe tough to clean out the little grungies that will accumulate…but hey…if the price is right

Lowly Folks???????????????

If catfishin makes me a a member of “lowly folks” club sign me up. I promise NOT to tell the non lowly folks just how much fun WE have chasin kitties

I do most of my cattin on the Illinois above the Starved Rock pool.

All right Ed!

I’ve found that you have to walk lightly until you know who your talking to….then we can start talking about bassholes (you know..places of deepwater to catch bait in) and those “other” green fish.

Help me out, Starving Rock Pool? I’m in MN sort of…can you give my a city…so I can see it on a map?

Still picking up some cats are ya?

I like the idea of bending some fiberglass in the corners.
To add to that.If you were to drill lots of holes into the fiberglass,add some filter material and sick the suction end of a pump behind the fiberglass and into the filter material.You would have a very nice filter system too.

Starved Rock pool…..
Located on the Illinois river…in Illinois….near the town of Utica. I frequently fish the pool above this one in the Ottawa Illinois area. The Starved rock pool is the most popular area to fish due to the large State park located there. Most popular equals most crowded so I fish the pool above.Less popular,with lots more fish per fisherman.

So far the fish are still cooperating although I’ve had a harder time of finding the bigger fish. Was out Wed and got 25-30 on cut shad, most were in the 3-4-5 pound area though

Nice pic Ed

The Il river looks like more of a lake than a river too. Are you drifting for channels or anchoring? Looks like you’re about 50 miles from Joliet…

Do you fish flats too? Isn’t that were they’ve found Bighead Carp?

Yep this section of river, gets much like a lake at times….little to no current. Some days we drift some days we anchor. Alot depends on the dam keeper and how much water he wants to let flow.

Bighead carp? Supposedly LOTS of em in the pool just below the one I frequent. Havent seen any in this pool yet, but I havent been looking for them either

The Flats are here, just no where near as big as some of the monsters some of the guys here have been posting pictures of. I didnt spend too much time targeting them this year but did manage to pick up a few. A handful of 2-10’s with the Biggest, a measley 16 pounds.

Make sure your rounding material is high enough so the bait cannot get between it and the freezer. Probably would be a pain to try to get em out of there.

Hey Brian, we used to keep minnows. When we first started pumping water to aeriate them we had sump pump in the tank. We found out that heated the tank up and killed the minnows, whatever you do run an exterior pump to aeriate with. If i were going to build one and a cheap filter system i’d drill a 2″ hole in the bottom and get some pvc threadedfittings and nuts for the 2″ hole for a compression or squeeze fit to the bottom and run some silicon between the fittings and tank bottom. Find a 1 1/2″valve to regulate the flow from this pipe to a box with a divider in it. One half of the box is where the sump pump with a float attached to it sits and the other half is where you put a rolled up gunny sack or fireglass material to filter out the waste from the bait. When the sump and filter well gets to a certain height the pump will kick on pumping the water back into the tank through small holes drilled in 1″pvc running lengthwise on the top of the tank running from the pump. If you feel ambitious or can hire the neighbor kid cheap you might want to run a few lengths of pvc pipe underground to cool the water as it comes from the sump pump a ft. to 16 incehs on the shady side of the house close to the basement wall would cool the water down enough to keep minnows alive. If you put the freezer on 16″ concrete blocks that leaves enough height for a sump and filter well. You can regulat the entire flow from the freezer by the valve by the bottom of the tank. I found you have to put screen over the exit fitting on the bottom of the tank to keep minnows from getting ground up in the sump and plugging the small holes that are inthe 1″pvc that areiates the water with. The pump wouldn’t run all the time and you could run 1″ pvc all the way around the top of the tank if you wanted to for aeriation. I’d get a piece of plywood to put over the top of the tank to keep the bugs and things out. Enough pvc underground in the shade and that would cool the water, just don’t know how much footage you’d have to run, i’d say 50′ of 1 1/2″ is where id start. This is how i’d build mine. THe water in the underground pvc will stay in the pipe until the sump kicks on again and thats run by the exit valve at the bottom end of the tank.

Thanks Mossy and all!

This “network” is amazing!