filtered bait systems...

[Ralph]

ladies and gentlemen; have anyone of you seasoned know it all vets had any personal experience with live bait wells at home? i have been toying with the idea for a while [as soon as i start doing some more fishing to justify it] i want to look into it. is it that difficult to keep live bait?
the people that sell and market these 'tanks', lets call em for the sake of simplicity, contend all you need is a good thermostate and aerator. does anyone know if you can keep say eels and shad in the same tank?
thank you in advance for your comments.

ralph

[Hat80]

I have a saltwater fishtank setup. Not only can you keep your bait in it but you can use the water to keep your bloodworms alive. You could do the same thing with a freashwater tank. Just dependes on what your needs are? ;).....Tightlines

[Anthony]

Personally I do not think that this would be feasable unless you could keep spot or menhaden alive in a livewell. I know that some people in DE have livewells that they keep spot in and do really well in the late fall when all of the spot are gone. I just feel that it would be difficult to bring the live bait home without having them die. Eels are relatively easy to find at the bait shops. I know that some people have aquariums at home and keep their eels in there. That's pretty much all I know on the subject, HAPPY NOW buddy :p.

[Ralph]

yes, very happy, thank you. i knew you guys had to have an opinion on the topic. the saltwater aquarium idea has some merit.
anthony, what about buying the spot and/or whatever just before the season starts. and use that supply of bait. would that be too much trouble?
see my thought is you can have fresh/live bait whenever you wanted it without having to rely on the tackle shop. you may be right. it is still too much trouble than its worth?

ralph

[Smoothbore54]

A buddy of mine used to keep Shiners in an old chest freezer, in his basement.

As I recall, he used a swimming pool filter to circulate and spray the water back into the tank.

There may have been more details, but it's been 25 years or more, since that set up was in use.

[Ralph]

anthony, i was just about to agree with you that if there is bait available at the tackle shop it may just make more sense to get it there. and aero just got off the phone sarcastically telling me he plans on putting a live well in his SUV [then hung up]. he really pi$$ me off. so i thought my idea sucked until smoothoperator posted. so you see it is not as dumm as it sounded. go smoothie, go smoothie, go smoothie!


ralph

[aero993]

Ralph I'm going to set up a live well in my truck. That way, we never have to worry about fresh bait while we are in the OBX.

[Anthony]

Usually not too many places sells live spot, only places on the coast. I have never found a shop that sold live spot in the chesapeake bay. I only found one shop last year in the fall that sold spot and it was 2.00 each with a 20 fish minimum order. Ideally if you can go somewhere that you can catch a lot of spot, then keep them alive for a few months, you're set. I know many places that you can catch spot but in the fall they are a lot more scarce.

[Wrong Way]

How far do you live from the water? The idea is great but the hard part is getting the bait fish home in your tank alive. Unless you have a portable setup to get the fish from the water and vise versa it will be hard to keep saltwater fish alive. As for the fish tank, you can pick up a 100 gallon tank or just use very large tubberware containers. Overall, great idea. Keep us posted on your progress.

And $2 a Spot is whacked. It would be nice to live 30 minutes or less from the water and stock up during the season for fall runs.

[Anthony]

I just thought if someone could do this with peeler crabs, that would be the big money maker. Of course getting the salinity to the right levels would be the hard part.

[Wrong Way]

There are machines you can use to test and measure the amount of salt solution you can add to the water. It's pretty high tech if you need it to be. Lots of topical fish priced in the thousands would require no less to their owners.

[Ralph]

anthony, am i mistaken but aren't pellers just soft shell blue crabs? you know drum LOVE pellers. but i disgress, i wonder if crustaceans are more difficult keep alive in a tank than fish. you always see lobster in the restaurants and giants food store in big fish tanks. hmmmm.

ralph

[Anthony]

Peelers are just crabs that are about to shed their shells. You can put peelers in a tank and check them every half hour. Once a crab has shed it's shell, it only takes 1/2-1 hour for it to harden. Crabs are relatively easy to keep alive but to get the crab to shed, you need to have it in some type of salt water solution.

[Wrong Way]

Crabs wouldn't be hard to raise in a tank. The only problem is if they are about to shed their shells and if there's fish in the tank, they are pretty much lunch. I had the same encounter with a crayfish and goldfish in the same tank.

[Manayunk Jake]

Greetings Ralph, Wrong Way et al!

When the kids had "Rambo" (their pet Oscar), I always had a 10 gallon tank going for feeder goldfish. After a while I started dumping in leftover minnows and crayfish. It was like having free bait every third or fourth trip. Anyway, my son sort of adopted one of the feeder goldies (a pearl white comet) as a pet. Rambo came to an untimely demise, and the goldfish had the tank to himself, except for the occassional visitors from the baitbucket. Its amazing how big a goldfish can get when you put it in a ten gallon tank. Whenever a crayfish would split its shell, that goldfish would bully it out from behind the corner filter and chow down.

In any event, having aquariums around the house led to a lot of experimental bait keeping. The easiest minnows to keep are killies (aka mumichog or bull minnows.) They can even live in freshwater. Eels are easy to keep, but you need a good cover over the tank. Again, eels can be kept in freshwater.

The problem with most saltwater bait species is twofold: aeration and water temperature. After that comes waste build-up. Many stores and on-line vendors sell live bait wells, but these are not intended for longterm storage. The ideal set-up is a bait pen at a dock. Even hard-to-keep species like bunker and herring can last a long time in a bait pen.

There's a Jersey dealer who specializes in softshells. His method is basically what Anthony pointed out. He keeps peelers in a 10 foot by 30 foot by 1 foot galvanized tank. He has a couple of high school kids that check every half hour for softshells.

My advise is to go ahead and try -- you never know what might work until you try it. At the same time, make plans for what to do if the bait goes belly up, so that you're not looking at a total loss.

[Ralph]

there ya go! that's the ticket.
thanks guys! wrongdue, anthony, smoothie, hatman and mj, in the clutch! who your boyfriend, who's your boyfriend, who's your boyfriend!

aero :mad:


ralph

[Wrong Way]

I got an idea. Get a large boat cooler, add an external filter system then tap 2 holes on the back of the cooler towards the top to run the filter tubing. Get a submersible pump and heating system and you got yourself a live well. Coolers tend to hold temperatures constant and will require less supervision and you can place the whole thing in the basement.

As for a portable system, build a similar but smaller setup using a DC filter, pump and heating system. Once you're on the road, plug it up to your car or have a separate battery so you can take it down to the water with you.

I should really consider making a few of these as a side business

:D