With the kingi season just around the corner I'm looking to change the chilly bin on my yak into a live bait tank. I've had a 6 or so livies in it before but they seem to turn into floaters after an hour or so. Am thinking about just attaching a small self priming salt water pump on it to keep the water going.

Can any one point me in the right direction to find one? Small being the ideal as I'm hoping to run it of the same battery as my FF. From what I've heard it needs to be self priming.

cheers James

Try windscreen washer pump ex car wreck - low current drain, and won't blow your livies out of the bucket at 350 gallons per hour.

Just a theory which I hope to put into practice as soon as I can locate a decent sized one...

HLD
(Always on the lookout for BattleYak ideas)

But there's absolutely no geek status to be achieved in dragging a laundry basket around behind your Yak.

I have heard of live bait sleds that do a similar thing, although I for one wouldn't want to pull that along as well as the yak - Ever tried paddling off after forgetting you still had the sea anchor out? (not that I have, you understand)

Then you also have this tasty cage of wriggling, twitching fishies taunting any large bitey things that drop in behind to see what's going on. [Thinks: Must fit rear view mirror to Yak]

HLD
(Who has now found a windscreen pump and nutting out how to plumb it in, when he should be doing proper work)

Just found that out Ohsif

Ahh well, back to the drawing board, the idea is still promising enough to pursue though, will try a different type.

HLD

And you can use it as a laundry basket during the week! Brilliant!

 

Actually I had an idea when I was partly mad and considering setting my scrambler up for fishing .. my livie tank was going to consist of something low and flat - and with a foot water pump. One of those squishy rubber ones that they use for galley salt water systems.

You don't need to have a pump going full time - just enough to refresh the water every now and then. I was going to mount the galley pump in the foot slot and pump with that.

But then I saw sense and, after having rod holders fitted, flagged the dumb idea away and stuck with fishing from the boat. You can take beer in a chilly bin on a boat.

 

"...And you can use it as a laundry basket during the week! Brilliant!" Said Bender

...How would you explain the forgotten Jack Mack that ends up going through the tumble dryer?

I have never studied live bait tanks but next to shock the biggest killer of fish in a live bait tank would be lack of oxygen I would have thought. While pumping fresh sea water through would certainly get rid of excrement etc,  keep the temperature at the same level as the sea outside, and provide oxygen and is probably the answer on bigger boats  perhaps using a small aquarium air pump might also provide a reasonabe solution. You are after all only trying to keep the fish alive for a few hours not a few months. There is certainly enough of those that run on 12 v.  If you use a decent chilly bin with a lid and a decent vent through that to let the air out you should keep the water at approx the right temp and exclude the light which spooks and shocks fish. Just a thought I havnt given it a lot of contemplation, there may be other aspects I havnt considered.

 

The way aerators work is not by pumping air into the water but by increasing the surface area of the water. This works fine in an aquarium where you have a large water to fish volume ratio, however a typical small boat live bait tank has in comparison a low water to fish volume and often a small water to air surface area. This means turning over water in the tank is the most effective way to keep the fish alive and in reasonable condition.

Hiya Krill,

The aerator stones sliming up aren't a problem with livebait tanks for the length of time the fish are in there - I run an aerator with good results, and find that water temperature and toxins are now (I assume) the cause of my livie fatalities.

The problem with most 12v pumps is the current drain,along with the 300GPH flows which tend to blow the fish around , and there is little point in driving a high flow pump only to bleed half of the water off.Most pumps are designed to shift a lot of water quickly, not a slow but steady flowrate.

I am playing with a waterproof momentary switch system to run the pump for 30seconds every 5 min - It has a 5A initial load, but settles to 2A running so on a pulse setup this should prolong battery life.

As far as water splashing in - this is generally not a problem with SOT Yaks , and a sponge is generally enough for any stray water inside the dry areas.

Cheers
HLD

HLD, You have the right idea with the timer switch, the idea would be to have the pump on as little as possible with minimum battery drain. Will do a little research on Live Bait tanks, give it a bit of thought, and see what I can come up with. Will probaly want to make one for my own use shortly anyway. Probably need a little circuit board made to lay it all out on etc which complicates things a little but it should be possible to come up with something in the long run once I know exactly what is required . Anyone got any good sources of Live Bait Tank info sites etc they can refer me to. One of the mags did something recently on Live Bait Tanks I believe. There is probably some darn good info out there somewhere. Like they say it most often been done better by someone before. The secret is in thinking laterally and coming up with as good or better solution cheaper. Thanks. 

Dogfish, the oxy idea is not a bad one and worth giving a bit more thought too. Trouble in NZ is its never cheap