Plumbing a bait tank under the bait board

[theangryangler]

Hi all just after some ideas on how to plumb my livie tank.
It is one that sits under the bait board above the transom (c pic)
my main issue is if i just pump it in and have it drain out the other side
where the holes are it will just over fill and wont drain properly as
when the boat rocks around it wont drain. so i was thinkin a pump in and
when full a pump out via a seperate switch if ya know what i mean...
any thoughts

thanks in advance AnGrY
84337

[Aussie123]

Drill a hole in the back and fit a 25mm bulkhead/thru hull fitting and it will drain onto your rear step.

[Spaniard_King]

Pump feeding in from bottom on one side. overflow at top twice the size of inlet or there abouts (ie 19mm in and 28mm out) use 90 degree skin fitting at top and run a hose so that overflow goes where you want it.

It will drain back through the pump if you do it this way... you can also add a drain plug (skin fitting with plug http://bla.com.au/default/straight-sink-waste.html?___SID=U ) on the opposite side down the track if you arn't happy with the result.

Key to a good live bait tank is fresh water in the bottom and waiste water out the top!

[Fed]

Do you already have some holes in the tank Angry?

[cormorant]

Some previous posts links below

Do you already have a deckwash with a through hull fitting? Just looking how clean your transom is.
I can see a drain in the bottom.

How many liters is your live tank?

All I can add is if you use squid you need to place a large grille over your overflows ( yep more than one) so they don't cover them and flood your decks ( especially overnighters) . One to drain over the back past rear step ( no ink etc) and one as a back up that dumps on teh rear step you will hear when the other is clogged up. Your grille can be mesh or a piece of conduit cross drilled as much as you can stuck up your outlet so it can't be covered by a squid or 2. I like pumps to come in at the top ( so they don't drain when pump is off) but then have a small airator and a tube that goes to the bottom of the tank so waterflow goes in the bottom and creates a bit of a whirlpool affect. The airator acts as a antisiphon.

Smaller the tank and how mych you put in all make things a litle harder to get good flow and circulation. We used to have a 2nd container with mesh over a couple of oulets in the side the top strapped on the back step we could put a 2nd hose from the pump into for days when we needed heaps of livies or put squid in one and slimies in the other. It just overflowed and was simple and the bubbling of water sometimes kept fish around. .


http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/showthread.php?177291-Live-bait-tank-options&p=1300920#post1300920

http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/showthread.php?179385-Live-bait-tank


Some nifty bits here so you can use bottom drain also as teh overflow without extra holes in tank

http://www.customlivewells.com/Pages/plumbingandoverflow.aspx

[theangryangler]

hi all thanks for the replys
the tank is around 25-30L and has two holes predrilled one either side with one being higher then the other. in my old rig i had a tank that had a 18mm inlet and a 54mm outlet which worked great in a river but out in the bay would over fill from the rocking so i am trying to avoid that in this boat.


thanks angry

[MackerelMan]

Hey Mate, I have a similar bait tank and find keeping bait alive offshore pretty difficult. Great for calm rivers and bays but any livies get smashed in a swell due to the height of the tank. Sounds like you have experienced this already. My setup is pretty eell as mentioned above

[Fed]

18mm in & 54mm out, you had to have had your outlet too high or an oversized pump.

[theangryangler]

no it was just the rocking back and forth of the boat and the water in the tank so it would not flow evenly if rocking about too much is all
in small stuff it worked well but in a good swell was a bit of a bastard. i was using the pump supplied with the tank and the outlet was at the same place as the factory drilled i it just made it bigger.

[Fed]

I'm using a Rule 360 GPH + a scoop, 20mm in and 20mm out, the only time I can get it to overflow is at high speed where the scoop really gets the water flowing.
At the moment I just leave the inline tap turned down a little but one day when I remember I'm going to squash the scoop a little.
I think the trick to keeping them alive is continuous water supply an old boat I used to have had a separate scoop & pump which had a dead spot around 8 knots where is was too slow for the scoop but too fast for the pump, the fish would start dying in no time at around that particular speed. That's why I'm no fan of bait pump timers.

[Out-Station]

Angry, only looking at the photo and i might be wrong but i recon your going to struggle keeping any decent volume of water and a heap of slimies alive in a tank that size and that high of the deck in any type of swell. If you plan on doing a heap of live baiting it may be better to look at other options, plastic drum or esky on the deck or something. As said above water going in the bottom, waste out the top. My infeed is at the top of both my tanks, i just have a 90 degree skin fitting with a tube on the end going to the bottom of the tank. I put avery small hole in the tube above top water level to stop the water syphoning back out through the pump when its not running. Its amazing the difference high water flow makes to keeping big densities of bait in the tank alive, also i find i can actually keep small bonnies and stripies alive for a while when normally people say you need tuna tubes to keep these tuna type bait species alive.

Scott

[TREVELLY]

I like the idea of pipe to the bottom of the tank and a hole at the top to prevent syphoning - I will add that to my pump arrangement.

I run pump and scoop on separate lines to my tank and I do run a variable timer on the pump to save the battery when at anchor - seems to work well for me - the scoop pushes the water pretty hard. Continuous pump at anchor or remembering to turn it on or off would be too much hassle.

Only dumb thing to my tank was a row of holes along the back top to let it drain and when the boat is nose up it drained too much water out so I got those plugged and put in a drain to side/top/front fed through a hose to duckboard level.

[cormorant]

Reason I asked about size was it didn't look deep enough for sloppy conditions . Was wondering if it is worth getting it extended back and down a bit into the well , or raise the cutting board a bit to hold a decent volume so it is useful or do like we did and just run a barrel over the back. Old trick I've seen used with airation ones is a surface baffle that stops the water in a small tank getting up that motion. 2 bits of stiffish weighted eva foam with holes in it that sit on the surface and stops a lot of motion.

Either that or use it as bait storage and put a tub over the back on the duckboard.

[theangryangler]

i usually keep 0 to 15 yakkas in the tank at a time and if i drain it and refill it manually i can keep them alive for all the day 8+ hours