Bait tank help

[irons]

So I'm building my own bait tank out of a plastic 55 gallon drum. My question is? Does it matter which way the water circulates, clockwise or counter clockwise? Does one way keep shad better? Or does it not matter. Thanks

[johnr]

All mine have been counter clockwise.

[mwardncsu]

I have mine on a programmable system so that they will swim anti-counter-clockwise for 30 min and then reverse-clockwise for the other 30 mins when keeping ales, and when keeping big gizzards it alternates every 15 minutes.... then when I get out on the water to change the programming to run in only one direction - the directio depending on what direction I'm pulling the creek. Which has to also correspond with which nostril I hook the bait through.....

[irons]

Aug 10, 2017 21:27:52 GMT -5 mwardncsu said:

I have mine on a programmable system so that they will swim anti-counter-clockwise for 30 min and then reverse-clockwise for the other 30 mins when keeping ales, and when keeping big gizzards it alternates every 15 minutes.... then when I get out on the water to change the programming to run in only one direction - the directio depending on what direction I'm pulling the creek. Which has to also correspond with which nostril I hook the bait through.....

That was the exact answer I was looking for. So basically what you're saying is that it doesn't matter.

[mwardncsu]

Nope - they won't care. Like a John said most seem to be counter-clockwise but my guess is that's because a bunch copied the first as to which side of the tank the pump was installed with respect to the filter and that resulted in a certain direction.

[Yam]

It doesn't matter. What does matter is that your flow is not too strenuous. Harder flows are rougher on the bait and can keep particulates suspended in the water column. Of course, you do want some flow for mixing, filtration and for introducing air.

What I did was make several inlets that have different sized holes and found the one that seems to work best. My final conclusion was that less turbulence is better. In other words, a large hole for my inlet worked best overall for clean water and for happy bait.

[Yam]

Another interesting thing I have found is that in saltwater, a livewell outperforms a closed tank system 10 fold. I think the big issue with livewells in fresh water is lack of salt. But... In saltwater... Oh yeah.. It's already there.

[johnr]

Ever noticed how much better the bubbles are in salty tank water than not salty tank water? It's a huge difference.

[mwardncsu]

Aug 11, 2017 6:52:30 GMT -5 Yam said:

Another interesting thing I have found is that in saltwater, a livewell outperforms a closed tank system 10 fold. I think the big issue with livewells in fresh water is lack of salt. But... In saltwater... Oh yeah.. It's already there.

That and your bait in saltwater is more warm-water tolerant....

[irons]

Thanks for the help, I know it sounds like a stupid question but I know water circulates better in certain directions on this hemisphere. Sometimes I may overthink things. Basically I'm using a plastic 55 gallon barrel and cut it down and built a lid for it. Going to keep roughly 25 gallons of water in it. Using 360 gph submersible bilge pump inside mounted on pvc that has filter material inside of the pvc. Have a removable top to replace the the filter material. Granted I'm not keeping shad overnight or long times spans. Put in a few that are caught for 5-6 hours. Using salt and shad keeper in the water. Going to try this and adjust as it goes.

[mwardncsu]

Aug 11, 2017 6:54:41 GMT -5 johnr said:

Ever noticed how much better the bubbles are in salty tank water than not salty tank water? It's a huge difference.

Yep - has to do with the salt changing the surface tension of the water You get much finer bubbles with salty water than fresh.

[irons]

Aug 11, 2017 6:47:42 GMT -5 Yam said:

It doesn't matter. What does matter is that your flow is not too strenuous. Harder flows are rougher on the bait and can keep particulates suspended in the water column. Of course, you do want some flow for mixing, filtration and for introducing air.

What I did was make several inlets that have different sized holes and found the one that seems to work best. My final conclusion was that less turbulence is better. In other words, a large hole for my inlet worked best overall for clean water and for happy bait.

Thanks for the heads up, I'm going to put some kind of valve in to vary the flow rate.

[mwardncsu]

Aug 11, 2017 8:19:48 GMT -5 irons said:

Thanks for the help, I know it sounds like a stupid question but I know water circulates better in certain directions on this hemisphere.

I saw an interesting video of a street performance done at the equator where they pop over on one side of the street and show water flowing clockwise down a drain - then go to the other side - which waanacross the equator - and it flowed counter-clockwise.

Turned out it had more to do with some slight slope in the sink table they were using for the trick as well as the angle/direction they poured the water into the sink

[2 oars & a trash can]

Any hemisperical difference would be the result of the Coriolis effect. A bait tank (or bathtub, or toilet) has too many other variables for this to make any difference. Swiping a finger, much less bait net, through the water has a much greater effect. Here's a quick, good article on it: www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-somebody-finally-sett/.

[jt]

Aug 12, 2017 18:47:47 GMT -5 2 oars & a trash can said:

Any hemisperical difference would be the result of the Coriolis effect. A bait tank (or bathtub, or toilet) has too many other variables for this to make any difference. Swiping a finger, much less bait net, through the water has a much greater effect. Here's a quick, good article on it: www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-somebody-finally-sett/.

    thanks for this article, very interesting had always heard about this effect but never really gave it any thought.


    I know a lot of folks on this forum have the super bait tanks or the blue water and these are really great tanks, and when you start the build your own you start to ask all kinds of questions as to how all of it works. Water temperature, oxygen levels, bubble size, flow Direction and strength, what kind of salt to add and on and on...

    Irons, I would be careful with your PVC filter as it will probably not have much surface area and it will probably get clogged easily depending on how many bait you put in there. We always tend to overload our bait tanks, but I speak from experience about the filters. If you have let's say a 4 inch PVC pipe you will probably have just over 4 inch diameter circle of filtering surface. I once built a basket type filter with an 8 inch circular filter and it actually got completely clogged up even though I had probably at least 100 alewives in a 60 gallon homemade tank. built out of a special styrofoam material. Of course I was interested in keeping bait alive for 1 to 3 days which I did achieve. It would not be too difficult to rig up some sort of basket and filter material. You can use some of the green scrubby pads that they sell at Walmart for your dishes, they make wonderful filter material instead of some of that god-awful pillow fill that looks like an experiment gone bad after the first use.

   Salt. This last winter I was fishing at Smith Mountain Lake and I ran out of the famous Bait Keeper. I thought to myself that I was definitely out of luck without this miracle product. I had been adding some extra salt that I had bought from Lowe's as water softener. I would simply put the salt in the filter basket strainer and the water falling on top of it would dissolve it. I had been following Jim hemby's(Lake Anna stripper guide) recommended 1 cup of salt per 15 gallons of water. I simply used the salt and to my amazement the bait stayed alive just as well which led me to the question what exactly does bait keeper do and what is inside the product? Are there any studies that have been released showing how much longer the bait will stay alive using the product? I have not seen any in at the moment will probably not purchase it any longer. I was able to keep bait alive for three days just using salt and some zeolite (ammonia reducer, I'm still evaluating this product). I have seen people use all kinds of different quantities of salt in bait tanks that have yet to see any kind of study showing which is the optimum under what water temperature. If anyone here has any kind of study like that I would love to see it. obviously certain concentrations work.

       I realize you were only asking about the direction of flow so I'm really adding all kinds of extra info here but I would imagine that it might come in handy at some point in the future. Temperature is one of the most critical aspects in keeping bait alive. Cooler the temperature, the more oxygen is retained and a lot of problems seem to go away. Without some sort of insulation it's tough to keep your water cool in the summertime. The ongoing consensus is that bait water should not be colder than 10 degrees of the lake temperature. I found out first-hand by catching some bait one time and putting it in my bait tank where I had just dumped two bags of ice. All of the bait floated up to the surface and I only figured it out later. Do not underestimate the temperature of your water. Hope this is helpful