Bait tank upgrade

[mwardncsu]

I bought my Super Bait Tank in Jan 2010 and it was one of the newer style that has the LED light and switch.

It's seen it's share of salty water over these almost 4 years. This past summer the original light installed started to fail - half the LEDs to start and then the rest blinking and finally dying a couple of trips ago.



It was well sealed but salty water has a way of eventually ruining anything electrical.


I picked up a couple of small white LED strip lights like the ones I used under my gunnels - basically LED tape lights encased in silicon. The adhesive strip on the LEDs wouldn't hold to the Starboard top material nor the plastic sides and even 3M outdoor double sided tape would not grip. So I screwed in some Zip-tie mounting points to secure the strips and wiring.

Wired them into the existing light wiring and we're back in business. Will see how long these will hold up but they are easy enough and cheap enough to replace later.

Will get a pic of them lighting up a tank of bait next time I catch some alewifes.




If you don't have a light in your tank, it's a good upgrade - either using these light strips or one like the original (saw them today at the new General Store in Southlake on VA40). Might just be me, but having the light on the bait seems to get them to lighten up and get shiny quicker.

[Jason54]

Nice!! Now if I just had a bait tank good enough to upgrade

[CorneliaGale]

Seems like I saw a strip of them in red somewhere, sounds like a good idea to install a set of them under the lip. thanks for the idea, will have to find some this winter and install them. Red won't hurt your night vision before any one asks why red.

[jon]

I installed a LED in my tank but put it under the water line so I wouldn't get any glare off the water. Do you have any problem with glare? I would rather keep it out of the way like you did under the lip.

Jon

[mwardncsu]

The old light was installed above the waterline and didn't create glare that was a problem. It had a diffused lens vs these strips which are bare LEDs but I don't expect and issue as the surface of the tank is never still when the pump is going and bait swimming

As to the color - these lights can from WalMart in the auto section but you can get them elsewhere. You can get red, blue, purple, white, etc. I don't feel night vision for the bait is an issue - I don't want them to see that big Striper coming after them anyway


I did use some liquid electrical tape and a little additional heat shrink to seal them up a bit more

[CorneliaGale]

Thinking more of my night vision than the fish. As I get older my eyes don't react as fast as they use to. So the less I look at white lights the better I see at night.

[mwardncsu]

I know..... I have a friend that bought a light to put in his tank and did not realize it was red (as it has a clear lens & LEDs) until he turned on the light - made his tank look a lovely pink

[mwardncsu]

Nov 19, 2013 23:53:08 GMT -5 jon said:

I installed a LED in my tank but put it under the water line so I wouldn't get any glare off the water. Do you have any problem with glare? I would rather keep it out of the way like you did under the lip.

Jon - here's a pic of the tank full of water (and some bait ) with the lights on.... some glare but not enough to prevent seeing the bait to net or creating any problem....

[jon]

The glare doesn't look bad at all. Nice looking bait too.

The next question is: Why do I like looking at a tank of bait so much?

Jon

[mwardncsu]

Dec 4, 2013 21:23:16 GMT -5 jon said:

The next question is: Why do I like looking at a tank of bait so much?

It's OK - you're among friends.... you know we all just sit and stare at the bait swimming around in our tanks for hours and hours.....

These are Bentrod's videos but they can help get you though the night...

[mwardncsu]

Dec 4, 2013 21:23:16 GMT -5 jon said:

The glare doesn't look bad at all. Nice looking bait too.

Here's the tank full of bait with the lights running.

[hotdog]

Man, a tank full of happy bait is kind of hypnotizing.

[mytoyzfishing]

Looks good. I think its a big improvement on the lights compared to what were in the 50 I used to have.

[jon]

The light looks great mward. Now I have to watch that video one more time.

Jon

[BentRod]

I gotta get my tank going again after looking at those beauties. Makes me wanna cry. All that's stopping me is time and money. Give me some money Mward and I'll work on the time part!