Live Bait Tank

[txneal]

I have an idea for a live bait tank, but since I've never tried to keep bait on this scale before, I'm hoping someone here might have some experience and be willing to offer suggestions. I live in a place where there is no live bait available, so if I want live bait for my trotlines, I'll have to keep them on hand myself. Here, in Texas, it is legal to use goldfish for trotline bait and I have a source for purchasing live goldfish, 3-5 inches long, that is about 150 miles from me. My plan is to go get about 300-400 goldfish and keep them to use as I need them.

For my bait tank, I intend to use my old hot tub, which holds about 500 gallons of water. I figure that I can fill it with water, condition the water properly, and then install an aerator. According to the guy I'll buy the goldfish from, this should be adequate to keep them alive for several months. However, he did tell me that the most important factor will be to make sure the water doesn't get too hot from the sun. Unfortunately, this hot tub is located in a spot where it gets full sun for most of the day. I'm thinking that I could just build a plywood/insulated lid and paint the upper surface with a reflective elastomeric paint to keep the heat out. I'm hoping someone here might have some experience with keeping baitfish like this and may have suggestions on how I might keep them cool enough in this situation.

I'm well experienced with keeping large aquariums indoors, so I have sufficient knowledge about keeping the water adequately clean, but it is the temperature that I'm most concerned about. I don't have an option to move the hot tub to a shadier location, so I will just have to make it work where it is. I've thought of adding some aquatic plants, but I would really prefer to keep this simple, so if I could just keep the sun out, I think I'll be doing ok. If any of you guys have experience with keeping bait tanks or might have some suggestions about something I may be failing to think of, I am eager to have advice on this. Thanks!

 

[Bugpac]

as long as you keep it covered i would think you would be fine. I cant see the water getting over 85 degrees, what temp are you looking to keep, did he say? You could also freeze some large ice chunks "like 2 galon pal size" and add one to the water every 2 days or so to help keep it from getting to hot.. The hot tub should be ideal as it is well insulated etc.. I know it is hot as heck in Texas, seems like a reflective surface on top of the cover might help as well... I assume once per week youll have to add fresh water as well correct? That would also keep it from getting to hot i would think..

 

[nathanielrthomas]

I would go to wal-mart or a local pet store and buy about a dozen first, just to see if you can keep them alive in the hot tub. 300-400 goldfish would be a hell of a loss. How much are goldfish when you buy that many? And if you do decide to use the hot tub, better watch out for racoons. It would be like an all you can eat buffet. Check it out on youtube, they have videos of racoons raiding goldfish ponds. :LOL2:

 

[Nevillizer]

Ok. I'm in central TX so I know what yer talking about. When I was kid we had the same issue with keeping gold fish, perch and red horse minnows alive for long preiods of time. You'll need to fab is some kine of a shade up. With your experiance with aquariums you know that the more direct sunlight you algea population will explode.

What my dad did was he plumbed a bilge type pump to where it dumped all the water into a large galvenaized bucket that had about 2-3 inches of pee gravel in it. The bottom of the bucket had lots of smal holes (just smaller than a pencil). The water was pumped into the bucket from the bilge type pump. It would filter through the pea gravel. The bucket itself was suspended about a 2ft above the water. As the water pumped into the bucket it would shower down into the tank. The contraption itsel was in a lean-to type shed where we kept our rabbits so it was out of the direct light most of the day. The water was always very cool.

To solve your shade problem I would get a mesh tarp and suspend it over your tank with some free standing stake down tent poles.

Just my thoughts. (PS. the frozen containes of water idea would be abad idea either)

 

[txneal]

Thanks for all of the feedback you guys have provided so far. I like the idea of building a shade directly over the hot tub, so I'll start thinking about a design. The mesh tarp on tent poles would probably work except for the fact that I am in west Texas and we get some awfully strong winds out here sometimes. I think it will have to be a little sturdier than that. Also, the bucket of pea gravel for water to trickle through sounds like a pretty simple solution as well.

As for the raccoons getting into it, I don't think I'll have to worry about it. I have two dogs back there who would love nothing more than for a raccoon to come into the back yard at night :wink: !

The goldfish are going to cost me $50/100, but I think that's a fair price considering that they are quite large size and that my other option is to have no live bait at all. My family has land and places to fish and seine bait over in central Texas, but in the part of the state where I live, there isn't a lot of water and, therefore, nowhere to buy bait. I have a small (500 acre) lake nearby and the Rio Grande River isn't too far, so I have a couple of places to fish...just need a bait supply!

 

[nathanielrthomas]

:idea: Sounds like a good opportunity for someone to open a bait shop round those parts. You might be able to make some money off those goldfish!!

 

[Nevillizer]

Well good luck.

 

[redbug]

Goldfish are a fish that like cooler water. They also need clean water So you will want to have some sort of filter. that can remove the waste from the water. as for keeping the temps down I would suggest making a chiller. They are easy to make and wont cost much and will save you a lot in lost fish.
Pick up a small refrigerator. next drill 2 holes through the side and fill the inside with a coil of copper tubing, run the tubing in and out of the holles and hook them up to a pump and run the water through the line this will help keep the water at a constant temp that will help keep the alive...

 

[txneal]

I came home from work today and cleaned out the hot tub real good, I have filled it with water and am now draining it before I'll fill it again. I've decided that I'll simply dig a posthole at each corner of the hot tub and install posts for a roof. I have most of the materials I will need to build it already, so I plan to get started tomorrow and try to have it mostly finished by the weekend. I have a couple of powerheads that each turn over 400gph, so I plan to put those in there for aeration.

I think I'll simply build the roof out of plywood, sloping toward the sun, and then will cover it with some corrugated fiberglass, coated with elastomeric. If that doesn't keep the temp low enough, I'll probably try Nevillizer's idea with the bucket full of pea gravel. The refrigerator with coiled tubing makes perfect sense, but I think I'll wait on installing this until I see if I'm going to need it or not. I really don't have any desire to raise and breed baitfish, so if I can just keep them on hand to have enough to bait my trotlines, I'll be satisfied. I'll probably just start out with about 150 goldfish and see how easily they survive before I fill it up with a few hundred.

The idea about starting a bait business would be fine with me, but there just aren't enough people who fish around here. Where I live, you have to drive at least an hour to get to the only lake within 200 miles. To get to a decent place to fish in the river, 4 wheel drive is a must and you have to be willing to deal with some extremely rough country and possibly even contend with foreigners and drug smugglers, so fishing isn't a real popular pasttime around here, except with the diehards like me. Therefore, my bait shop might have a pretty hard time making ends meet. Still, it was a fine idea!

For me, I just wish to have live bait availalbe when I'm ready to go fishing. I don't want to have to fool around with dragging a seine and throwing a castnet to try to come up with trotline bait (especially since there aren't many places to do that around here), so if I can just keep enough goldfish alive, I'll be satisfied.

If all goes well, I might have fish in my bait tank by next week, so I'll come back and post a pic for you guys once I get it done. Thanks for the help!

 

[txneal]

The bait tank is up and functioning now. I just put 100 goldfish into it yesterday evening and they all still looked quite lively and content when I checked on them this morning, so all is well so far. I still have a little work to do as far as running electricity to my pump since I just have an extension cord lying across the ground right now, but it is definitely appearing that it will turn out to be a perfect bait tank for me. If I can locate my camera before the sun goes down this evening, I'll try to get a picture posted for you guys. Otherwise, I'll be sure to get a pic on here within the next couple of days.

 

[Nevillizer]

Alright, good job. Look forward to the pictures.

 

[nathanielrthomas]

Thats freakin' awesome. Cant wait to see those pics.

 

[txneal]

Here are a few pics I took of the hottub bait tank. I still have a little work to do on it, but you can see the general idea from the photos.

 

[txneal]

So far, the goldfish are all healthy and active and it seems that after a few days in the new bait tank, all is well....except for the 4 that I've lost. Yesterday, when I got home from work, I noticed that one of them had been sucked up into the powerhead that I am using for aeration. As I was pulling it out, I noticed that a second one was in there too. As I was looking for something to screen off the inlet with, 2 more got sucked in! I don't know why they want to swim right up to the pump and get sucked in, but they do. Anyway, I have built a hardware cloth screen to cover it, so I shouldn't lose anymore. lesson learned!

 

[nathanielrthomas]

If it makes you feel any better, I cant even keep fish alive in my aquarium. 4 Goldfish out of 100 is pretty darn good. Congrats on the success bro.