Have any of you ever used one of these? I am thinking about getting one for a five gallon minnow bucket. How do they work in warm weather? Do they keep minnows any longer than just one of the cheap bucket bubblers? They are kind of spendy, so I don’t just want to try it and find that it doesn’t do the job.
I bet the cat guys will have this answer for you. They’ve done and tried it all when comes to keeping minners alive. 
Someone call???
I bought the small one…forget the name of it.
Place a half doz. suckers in the 5 gallon pail along with the AI bubbler…and the next morning they were all dead!
I found out later that many bait shops put salt in there bait tanks…and through electralisis (sp?) that changes not only the H2o into oxygen and hydrogen….but clorine…or cloride rather.
Dirk W had some thoughts on this and a fella that was sponored by them chimed in…I’ll find the thread for you.
Be back in a minute or two….
My thought is they work good at first. But, they just about need to be cleaned daily or the hard water scale builds up on them and they don’t work very good. I used to use them in my boat and for my bait. I have found the traditional bubble sysytem to work just as well. The bottom line is you still need to change the water or the Nitrogen levels will get to high. Nitrogen is more of a problem with bait than lack of oxygen.
Scott sumed’er up….
I used a AI unit when they first came out. IMO they are a gimmick. The unit killed my crappie minnows in a 5 gal pail with-in 10 minutes. I had the magnum model and figured maybe the thing choked my minnows? So I installed it in my livewell that day and it killed 6 walleyes in my livewell.
I was told you still need to use your livewell pump. But wont that dump all your nicely oxygenated water right into the lake? What good does that do? The reason for using your livewell pump with the Oxygenator is to keep your fish alive.
I’ve kept Red Tails alive for two weeks with a cheap $10 bubbler and keeping them in the fridge. I dont believe in the waste theory and being in the bait business before I’ve never heard of the salt thing either. We changed our bait tank water once a week and never had an issue with waste killing off bait.
Two things you need to keep minnows alive. Cold water and oxygen. Air bubblers like the cheap one I used only pump air and when the bubbles hit the surface and pop, the air is not staying in the water.
I didn’t mention I returned mine.
The fella that was reping for AI said that next year (which would be this year) they would be installed as standard equipment in production boats…don’t recall what brand.
The reason for them putting salt in their tanks is it helps put a slime coating back on the minnows after all the netting and other handling.
I also heard AI had issues with electrocuting fish in the wells too. There was an issue with shorting, and anglers getting shocked, as well as killing the fish. I don’t know if that was an isolated issue or not. I have contacted them a number of times to see if they would allow us to do a product review on their products, and they never even replied to my emails or phone calls. 
I love the good old bubbler and stone, and like Scott mentioned, you need to turn the water over frequently to eliminate ammonia (Nitrogen).
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