Just got my Super Bait Tank II and it’s awesome! If your not familiar it’s a shad/herring tank with filter and aeration. It uses a rule 500 gph pump and I will run it continuously but it’s munching my engine starting battery. I wanted to run this on my starting battery instead of my trolling motor batteries-mistake??? I thought I’d be smart and bought a deep cycle marine starting battery so I could draw it down farther than a standard starting battery. It’s a car size battery (not the bigger chassis like the big trolling motor batteries) with 690 marine cranking amps. Figured I could run the engine and charge up the battery to keep it going until I could get in for a full charge at the dock. I’ve been running a test for 3 hours with tank full and the pump on-started with a full charge and I’m already down to 12.5 V (13.4 at start) and 75% charge. I know my engine would start at 75% but I want to be able to run at least 4-5 hours without worrying about getting engine started and I am thinking the battery will be tapped if I wait that long to start engine and charge the battery with a good long boat run.
OK my other option is to run off the trolling motor system but I don’t want to prematurely drain that system. I’m running a terrova 80 lb with optima deep cycle blues. I think their rated at 925 cranking amps but I’m not sure. I’d have to pull power from one and I don’t like the idea of running one way down below 50% charge after a days fishing.
Who’s doing something similar and how are you getting by without a seperate battery?
Thanks.
rockriver
Posts: 39
December 18, 2010 at 11:46 pm
#1269985