Keeping live bait alive

Started by JasonGotaProblem, May 26, 2021, 07:33:38 PM

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Squidder Bidder

I had no idea live shiners were that expensive. At that price some investment in a setup might be in order. I know of Striper nuts who keep bare bones fish tanks for expensive/hard to get live baits (i.e. eels or spot). If you have the space you could probably get a used 55 gallon tank and stand with equipment on offerup or craigslist for a couple of bucks. You may want to add some new silicone at the joints. They paint one to three sides of the tank black (on the outside) to reduce stress on the baitfish.

Brewcrafter

Could a cattle tank be modified to make a good bait tank?  They seem inexpensive enough.  - john

oc1

The metal cattle tanks work fine for freshwater.  Saltwater will eat them up.

Serch for "Tuff Stuff tanks".  They are heavy duty plactic that will last a lifetime and come in a variety of sizes from seven to several hundred of gallons.  Look for them at Tractor Supply or your local feed store.

JasonGotaProblem

Really I find myself wondering if I wanna make a modular setup I can fit in a uhaul, go get a few hundred dozen of them and make the 12 hr drive to NC. That's quite a margin to play with. I could sell them at half your normal cost and still make money.

My brain works in funny ways.
Any machine is a smoke machine if you use it wrong enough.

philaroman

cross State lines & w/out a vendor Lic.?
any potential customer might be/know a baitshop owner & dime you out in a heartbeat
the fines would eat your profits & then some  :(

handi2

When i bridge fished all the time we used an old ice chest with a small bilge pump. We made the top crossbar out of PVC with holed drilled into it. Any small 12v battery will work. But we had access to fresh salt water. They now make that kit ready to use.

Keith
OCD Reel Service & Repair
Gulf Breeze, FL

thorhammer

Careful on agri tanks- I have one and have concerns it's leaching into the water and killing bait. Maybe goes away over time, but for sure I dont get the mileage vs other set-ups even using a cycled trickle filter, aerator and chelating agents for heavy metals- with 6X water capacity.

Also- if you use a drum make sure you get really good turnover from bottom of tank and aeration. Plastic drums have a very low surface area to volume ratio of air-to-water interface, and the water in the bottom can quickly become anaerobic and nitrate / nitrate saturated if not recirc'd.

As Keith said- I've used an Igloo 125 someone had tossed pretty well- with an aquarium filter and a baitwell aerator.

Note: shad and menhaden are the worst by far, but mullet and to some degree shiners arent going to like the sharp corners of an aquarium. If you go that route, silicone in some plastic pieces drilled out for circulation as radiused baffles.

Yes, I've spent way too much time, money and effort on this :), but I've been fishing fifty years, an aquarist for forty- five, and educated as a biologist and chemist. What else am I sposed to do....

JasonGotaProblem

I'm glad I started this thread. Thank you everyone for the contributions thus far. There's a lot of great info here.

Also I forgot to mention the other experiment. Instead of driving 25 miles to saltwater to get replacement water to keep shrimp alive, I tried a 4 tbsp non iodized sea salt per gallon mix with distilled water. (I just used store bought morton salt) They didn't seem to mind. In fact none died on me. It was 2 dozen in 3 gallons on a plug in aerator.

The plural of anecdote is not data, but I offer up the anecdote nonetheless.
Any machine is a smoke machine if you use it wrong enough.

oc1

There used to be (maybe still are) live shrimp haulers/dealers along the East Coast.  After trying it all, they settled on a flatbed truck with a really shallow tank the size of the truck bed.  The tank was filled with little mesh containers with a known number of shrimp in each.  The drifting containers dampen sloshing.  The shallow depth minimizes weight.  The large area (length and width) maximizes gas exchange (O2 in and CO2 out).  They also had battery circulator pumps.