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LIVEWELL WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT – DO
The fisherman is responsible for maintaining and managing excellent transport water quality continuously. Transport DO water quality the most important parameter compared to metabolic toxins, shape, color or brand any livewell or bait tank.
During hot summer months, when you know how to manage your livewell water quality and have the right livewell equipment, keeping live bait and tournament gamefish alive and healthy is very easy.
The fisherman must manage 2 transport water quality parameters:
1. ENSURE MINIMAL SAFE DO SATURATION CONTINUOUSLY – Livewell / bait tank water must have a continuous supply of oxygen (not air) of sufficient volume and concentration to maintain 100% DO Saturation continuously for all the bait and fish being transported. More fish or live bait requires more oxygen. Do not confuse oxygen with ambient air or aeration.
2. LIVEWELL VENTILATION – Livewell water must be ventilated or exchanged/flushed occasionally to control organic metabolic fish waste/toxins/poisons. Flush livewell water a few times daily eliminates concentrated toxic metabolic waste produced by the fish… dissolved CO2, carbonic acid, ammonia, acid pH, nitrites, nitrates and the big chunks of feces, vomit, blood, scales and protein.
Protein (fish slime or mucus) is responsible livewell foam. *Excessive slime production is a normal physiological response to any type of stress. Hypoxic stress is the results of low unsafe dissolved oxygen in transport water.
Protein is excreted into the transport water column by mucus glands in the fish’s skin. Rising gas bubbles (air or oxygen) through the livewell water column is called “protein skimming” a method of cleaning transport water.
Live bait and tournament C&R fishermen must be vigilant removing, dead/dying live bait and tournament fish from your livewell as soon as possible to eliminate additional toxins.
Fisherman’s failure to provide and ensure safe water quality, especially safe DO transport water quality is the primary cause of high mortality/morbidity every summer.
Toxic transport water quality causes additional abnormal fish stress resulting in excessive mucus productio (auto-stress response). Stress causes excessive mucus production, scale sloughing, red-nose, sloppy, lethargic, dying and dead bait. Deadly unsafe livewell water quality can quickly transform expensive live bait to dying red-nose crab bait. Unsafe summer transport water quality increases tournament mortality/morbidity every summer.
Deadly summer transport water quality also negatively affects tournament fish health resulting in the dreaded the “Dead Fish Penalty” or Punishment,” lost tournament money, lost prizes and disappointment.
MANAGING YOUR LIVEWELL – BAIT TANK WATER QUALITY IS SIMPLE AND EASY FOR THE SAVVY FISHERMAN
1. Transport DO water quality controlled by the Fisherman Left Hand – The fisherman calculates the correct dose of oxygen dialing that dose of oxygen in on his O2 regulator. The correct dose of oxygen is based on the stocking density. The continuous, safe dose of oxygen in transport water is 100% DO saturation or DO supersaturation. This DO is necessary when transporting high stocking densities of live bait or live fish in the summer.
You safely oxygenate and transport 1 baitfish or 1,000 live baits in overcrowded summer livewells. You can safely transport a 40 lb. tournament limit of marine or freshwater tournament fish all day/all night every summer when you have control and can regulate the dissolved oxygen in your livewell correctly.
2. With your right hand and your water pump, you ventilate/flush your livewell water, you eliminate and control all metabolic toxins and fish waste. Change the livewell/bait tank water a few times daily. It does not require much water exchange to control livewell toxins produced by highly stressed live bait and fish being transported.
Insure minimal safe oxygenation continuously, change the livewell water occasionally and remove the dead from the livewell often, that’s all there is to being successful transporting live bait and tournament fish every summer for the rest of your fishing life.
ASSESS YOUR BAIT AND LIVEWELL WATER QUALITY IN THE FIELD
Look at your livewell water, turbidity, water clarity, foam on the surface and smell. When bait fish and shrimp excrete toxic metabolic by-products and waste into the livewell water, the first poor water quality symptom you will see is increased turbidity or clouding of the water, then look for abnormal fish behavior. Toxic bait tank water will appear cloudy. Later stages of more sever water quality is dirty foam on the water surface. Water that stinks is a symptom of more advanced water quality deterioration. Transport water exchanges are mandatory when you see these symptoms.
How should live bait behave in your livewell? Live bait fish, shrimp and tournament fish should behave like goldfish or guppies in your home aquarium when water quality is safe and under control. When bait fish are not schooling or exhibit other erratic stress symptoms, stacking in livewell corners, piping, red-nose, loss of slime coat, you probably have a serious livewell water quality problem that needs your attention ASAP.
Live bait and fish behaviors in your livewell tell you when there is a transport water quality problem. When fish are piping at the surface, do not appear calm, breathing fast, not schooling low in the water column or look tranquil in your livewell; expect serious water quality problems and act… change your livewell water.
Bait fish school at the bottom of your livewell when water quality is safe. When your livewell water quality is within the safe range bait fish do not develop “red nose” or stack up in corners gulping air.
Most serious livewell bait tank water quality problems occur in the summer when environmental water is hot and the oxygen levels are low, when livewells and bait tanks are overstocked intentionally and unintentionally.
FISH STRESS SYMPTOM – DIRTY, NASTY FOAM IN THE LIVEWELL
When average fishermen see dirty, nasty, foam in the livewell, he buys and uses a livewell supplement (Foam-Off detergent) that makes that nasty foam disappear… thinking out of sight is out of mind, his foam problem is solved in seconds.
Unlike the average fisherman, the savvy fisherman understands what foam in the livewell really means.
Foam in livewell water is a major symptom of serious sustained fish stress caused by poor livewell water quality. Low DO, toxic livewell water is a common water quality problem found in overstocked aerated livewells and bait tanks every summer.
Surface foam in aerated livewells and bait tank water reduces the ability of gases to diffuse into the water resulting in lower unsafe DO, additional dissolved CO2 and lower acidic transport water in aerated bait tank water.
All stress, especially sever sustained stress like suffocation/hypoxia cause fish to excrete excessive slime, mucus and protein.
Mucus, the slime layer protects fish from microbic pathogens, fungi, like sputum protects human lungs. Fish mucus or fish slime is protein. Livewell foam is produced when any gas (air or oxygen) is bubbled through the livewell water column with diffusers, bubblers, spray bars aeration systems, agitators and bait pumps.
Antifoaming supplements (detergents) hide the foam in poor bait tank water quality. Antifoaming livewell supplements hide fish stress and toxic water quality.
Foam in the livewell is a symptom of sever extend stress during live transports, excessive slime production and scale slough causes toxic water quality. Fish produce slime (mucus/protein) normally, slime protects fish against infection. Abnormal stress causes excessive slime production, a fish’s normal reaction to stress.
Fishermen hate looking at that nasty black foam on the surface of livewell water and often apply various commercial anti-foaming agents to hide the ugly foam. These detergent antifoaming livewell agents hide the symptom of high stress caused by bad livewell water quality. The antifoaming detergent agents DO NOT CORRECT the bad water quality problems causing the abnormal stress.
Popular commercial anti foaming agents (detergents): Sure Life – Foam-Off Surface Foam Remover,” T-H Marine – “G-Juice,” and others.
Fishermen have choices about foam in the livewell
The average fishermen hide the foam using antifoaming livewell detergents that is caused by excessive, sustained fish stress.
The savvy fishermen fix the livewell water problem that is causing the excessive fish stress and abnormal slime (mucus/protein) production and the foam goes away.
The quickest, deadliest # 1 stressor in aerated summer livewells is low DO or no oxygen (hypoxia) – frank livewell suffocation.
Dissolved oxygen is the single most important water quality factor for keeping live bait and tournament caught bass alive and healthy during all day live transports every summer.
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This TP&WD publication also applies equally to all live transports of Marine and freshwater baitfish and bait shrimp
Oxygenation of Livewells to Improve Survival of Tournament-Caught Bass
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/didyouknow/inland/livewells.phtml
By Randy Myers and Jason Driscoll
Inland Fisheries Division
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
June 2011
“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.”
“Fully functioning livewell systems and proper application of proven livewell management and fish care procedures are absolutely necessary and may keep a heavy fish limit healthy, but oxygen injection offers a surer alternative.”
“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…”
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