A livewell is a

water tank A water tank is a container for Water storage, storing water, for many applications, drinking water, irrigation, fire suppression, farming, both for plants and livestock, chemical manufacturing, food preparation as well as many other uses. Water ...

found on many

fishing boat A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish and other valuable nektonic aquatic animals (e.g. shrimps/prawns, krills, coleoids, etc.) in the sea, lake or river. Humans have used different kinds of surface vessels in commercial, arti ...

s that is used to keep live bait and caught fish alive. It works by pumping natural water from the surrounding

waterbody A body of water or waterbody is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another planet. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such as ponds, wetlands, or more rare ...

into the tank, as well as an

air pump An air pump is a pump for pushing air. Examples include a bicycle pump, pumps that are used to aerate an aquarium or a pond via an airstone; a gas compressor used to power a pneumatic tool, air horn or pipe organ; a bellows used to encoura ...

for

water aeration Water aeration is the process of increasing or maintaining the oxygen saturation of water in both natural and artificial environments. Aeration techniques are commonly used in pond, lake, and reservoir management to address low oxygen levels or a ...

. It is a standard design feature in many modern sport fishing boats and

yacht A yacht () is a sail- or marine propulsion, motor-propelled watercraft made for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a ...

s, especially those used in

fishing tournament A fishing tournament, or Angling tournament, is an organised competition among anglers. Fishing tournaments typically take place as a series of competitive events around or on a clearly defined body of water with specific rules applying to each e ...

s, as competitions typically weigh participants' catch only at the end of the round and thus require the caught fish to be kept in the condition they were caught until the boat returns to dock. A

rule of thumb In English language, English, the phrase ''rule of thumb'' refers to an approximate method for doing something, based on practical experience rather than theory. This usage of the phrase can be traced back to the 17th century and has been associat ...

for determining the necessitated size of a livewell is that every inch length of fish needs a

gallon The gallon is a unit of volume in British imperial units and United States customary units. The imperial gallon (imp gal) is defined as , and is or was used in the United Kingdom and its former colonies, including Ireland, Canada, Australia ...

(3.8

liter The litre ( Commonwealth spelling) or liter ( American spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metres (m3). A cu ...

) of water if it is desired to keep the fish alive for a prolonged period of time. Besides size and water circulation, two other key factors of the functionality of a livewell are maintaining proper temperature and removing

metabolic waste Metabolic wastes or excrements are substances left over from metabolic processes (such as cellular respiration) which cannot be used by the organism (they are surplus or toxic), and must therefore be excreted. This includes nitrogen compounds ...

. Water temperatures should be below ;

ice Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...

can be used as a

coolant A coolant is a substance, typically liquid, that is used to reduce or regulate the temperature of a system. An ideal coolant has high thermal capacity, low viscosity, is low-cost, non-toxic, chemically inert and neither causes nor promotes corr ...

.Keeping Bass Alive Livewell
massbass.com

Oxygen levels

It is very important to maintain adequate oxygen levels in the livewell. It should be above 5

parts per million In science and engineering, the parts-per notation is a set of pseudo-units to describe the small values of miscellaneous dimensionless quantity, dimensionless quantities, e.g. mole fraction or mass fraction (chemistry), mass fraction. Since t ...

. Electric aeration systems are often used to do this. These often work by creating a spray that increases the

surface area The surface area (symbol ''A'') of a solid object is a measure of the total area that the surface of the object occupies. The mathematical definition of surface area in the presence of curved surfaces is considerably more involved than the d ...

of the water, or by passing it through a Venturi. A livewell is a box used to transport live aquatic animals; shrimp, baitfish and mature fish, saltwater or freshwater species. A livewell should be made of materials that are non- toxic to aquatic animals. The shape may be square, rectangular, oval or round. The box may be insulated, portable, and have a drain and lid. Maintaining minimal safe water quality standards in livewell water is essential to ensure a safe habitat for all the captive animals during transport. When transporting baitfish, shrimp or mature fish, maintaining dissolved oxygen saturation (DO Sat) is the single most important water quality parameter that must be controlled. Livewell oxygen–injection systems and LOX systems insure O2 enriched livewell water. Pure 100% compressed welding oxygen is injected into the water with a precision dose adjustable high-pressure oxygen regulator, oxygen tube and diffuser. Commercial and sport fishing oxygen-injection systems are designed to insure 100% DO Saturation or greater whether the bait or fish load is 1 lb or >1000 lbs. The minimal safe EPA water quality standard for steady state environments (rivers, lakes, ponds, etc.) is 5 ppm DO. Dissolved oxygen is the single most important factor for keeping bass alive, and an understanding of factors that affect oxygen levels will better enable anglers to keep their fish alive. At a moderate water temperature of 70˚F, 100 percent oxygen saturation is 8.8 mg/L of oxygen, whereas at the higher temperature of 80˚F, 100 percent saturation is 7.9 mg/L. Both of these 100 percent saturation oxygen levels are suitable for keeping bass alive. Without injecting oxygen into the livewell, it is very difficult to supply enough oxygen to keep alive heavier tournament limits. Oxygen injection has long been used by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) hatcheries to maintain the health of fish being stocked into reservoirs. Fisheries staff regularly transport or hold fish in ratios equal to or greater than one pound of fish to a gallon of water. However, boat manufactures do not offer oxygen injection system options. Proper installation and operation of an oxygen injection system will ensure oxygen levels remain above the preferred level of 7 mg/L even when livewells contain heavy limits.

References

{{reflist Fishing equipment Fishkeeping

Oxygen levels

See also

References