Every summer, the death and dieing in your boat
livewells and bait tanks begin when water temperatures reaches 75 F - 80 F
and get worse as livewell hypoxia progresses during the day.
All the money that you have spent or will ever spend on aeration
systems, bait tank pumps, batteries, replacing dying bait, ended fishing trips, aggravation,
buys you
only 2.3 PPM DO in freshwater. That's with no live bait or tournament fish
in the livewell. The saltwater DO would increase only 1.3
PPM. This
is not enough dissolved oxygen in your bait tank in the summer and the sad
results are imminent and predictable. What you buy is what you get and oxygen is
less expensive than air.
Saltwater holds 42% less dissolved oxygen than freshwater holds at the
same water temperature. Salinity affects oxygen's ability to dissolve in water. Multiply the test DO values times 0.58 to convert to
saltwater values, and you can see why bait tank oxygen problems are more severe
for saltwater anglers. Your boat livewell or portable live bait
tank is a very different matter during the summer. Live bait fishermen often
overstock bait tanks when attempting to
transport lots of live bait in the summer and mortality is often the result. Our test samples contained no live bait fish in the water
breathing and reducing oxygen levels.
NORMAL ENVIRONMENTAL FRESH WATER @ 86 F
Live bait fish, bass, and estuary fish routinely live in
environmental water having dissolved oxygen concentrations within this
range during the summer. Warm water fish tolerate lower than normal DO levels in their normal environment
easily, provided they have immediate access to thousands of gallons of water and
they are not being chased, hooked, fought and landed.
Cold water fish, such as walleye, would encounter serious life threatening oxygen deprivation
stress with this DO. For wild captive aquatic animals in crisis in your
bait tank, life is more demanding than living in the steady state
environment.
The Oxygen EdgeÔ is not a bait
tank or live
well aerator, it's a portable life support oxygen system used for transporting
live bait fish, bass, walleye and crappie in closed livewells for long
distances.
The Oxygen EdgeÔ supercharges
live bait fish with 100% welding oxygen bubbling into your bait tank water.
Oxygen is absolutely necessary for supercharging live bait fish, transporting and stockpiling
live baitfish and reducing delayed mortality with tournament fish in the summer.
Bait tank aerators and flow through live well pump systems are
used by most anglers worldwide for transporting live bait fish, bass and other
species. Federal, state and proprietary fish hatcheries transport live fish
with oxygen bubbling into their live wells. They are successful fish transport experts because they understand how to prevent livewell
suffocation simply by bubbling welding oxygen into their livewells and
managing water quality.
Mother Nature controls the dissolved oxygen (DO)
concentrations delivered by all bait tank pumps and aeration systems. She provides less than 21% oxygen in her air regardless of the
volume of air or water you pump through your livewell. Air contains 1/5 oxygen
and 4/5 nitrogen, at best. Doubling the amount of air or water flowing through
your livewell with multiple bait tank pumps will not double the DO
concentrations, but it will multiply the oxygen requirements and oxygen demand for
all bait fish, shrimp and catch and release tournament fish in your live well.
They all must swim harder to maintain equilibrium and the energy required may
exhaust the available dissolved oxygen in the bait tank water. All live bait fishermen see
this problem in the summer.
Excessive mechanical aeration systems producing millions of tiny air bubbles
suspended in bait tank water often causes nitrogen supersaturation, negatively
affecting live bait fish and live tournament fish. Excessive dissolved nitrogen
gas supersaturation negatively affects SCUBA divers on occasion. The disorder
is bends or gas bubble disease. Bends is very painful and it
may progress to paralysis and death. Anglers using aeration systems that produce millions of ultra
small air bubbles may cause bait tank bends in captive live bait, bass and
tournament catch and release fish.
Fishermen catch healthy baitfish
and sport fish every summer in hot environmental water. For stressed live bait fish and live tournament fish, the
death and dying begins in freshwater livewells when the DO concentrations fall
below 6.5 parts per million (PPM). Fish that live in hot (>86 F.) environmental water that are
not being netted, hooked or disturbed routinely live in water with DO concentrations below
5 PPM in the summer without ill effects. Tournament bass,
bait fish, and shrimp survive in hot
summertime environmental water year after year and the water is becoming hotter
every year. Live bait fish and live
tournament fish that are chased, netted, hooked, fought, caught, handled,
injured and confined in a boat live well with small water volumes and then
bounced around all day in a boat livewell develop severe oxygen deprivation
stress. The Oxygen EdgeÔ eliminates livewell oxygen
deprivation stress. It is not an aeration system.
The Oxygen EdgeÔ is a special
piece of fishing accessory equipment that does an extraordinary job
supercharging live bait fish and transporting live bass, walleye and crappie in
closed livewell systems.
In our three test samples, the livewell freshwater temperature was
a constant 86 degrees F. The dissolved oxygen concentrations were measured with a
dissolved oxygen meter having a
Clark Electrode.
The Control sample: normal environmental freshwater that is
not aerated.
The Aerated sample: freshwater with a high volume air compressor with air
tubing connected to a black soaker hose bubbling vigorously in the bait tank
water prior to
measuring the DO. The DO change you see on the meter is all the oxygen you get
when you buy aerators, bait pumps and batteries to operate them.
The Oxygenated sample: The Oxygen EdgeÔ supercharges
the freshwater simply by bubbling pure welding oxygen into the water. Low
dissolved oxygen problems in hot water bait tanks are eliminated forever. The DO
change you see in this sample is what you are buying for less than one cent per
hour.
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 by David A. Kinser,
all
rights reserved.
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