LiveWell Fish Care

[ssmith1]

I have a 2014 FX20 that I am having some fish care livewell issues with. I have lost fish twice now that were not gut hooked or any issues with deep water. I will say the last tournament was a 3 fish tournament and the lake temp was around 90 degrees. I lost two of my three fish.
Here is what I had my settings on:
Recirc was manual and on all day.
Fill was auto set on I think 3.
I also had the Aerator on the whole time.
I have the valves set to closed.
I used ice and fish care formula.
Question is what do I need to change to take better care of my fish?
What does the aerator do compared to recirc?
Since I added ice and that water would have been cooler than the lake water I kept pumping in, should I have turned the fill off?
Any help is appreciated.

[plbass]

Oce you fill your livewell turn it off. Only use recirculate. Add ice and fish care formula of some kind. My 2004 Skeeter has the oxygenator which helps alot. There is a few videos on you tube on this subject.

[MichAngler]

If the surface temp is 90 you need to cool the water down and not put any more of it in there unless you have a ton of ice

Fill the livewell put ice in there and some treatment like G-Juice and run the recirc on manual

Keep the aerator going as well

Another thing you can do is put a small amount of hydrogen peroxide in there as well

You’re going to need to add ice periodically throughout the day

[WI-Bassin]

This method has worked very well for me.

https://www.wired2fish.com/boats-mai...e-in-livewells

[OK_BassBum]

Never heard the sprite /mtn dew trick!
If you pay attention, you can learn something......

[ssmith1]

That was a very good video.
I appreciate all of the tips and will certainly change what I have been doing.

[sooner magic]

Be careful with the ice, sometimes there are to much chlorine in the ice water. I put the ice in a zip lock to prevent the ice melting into the live well water. but thats just me...

[Thamelau]

I have read that certain fish care products will react with the oxygenators and create chemicals that poison the fish. I haven't dug into because my oxygenators don't work, but something to look into.

[78Staff]

I want to said I've read that if you have oxygenators, you should only use G-Juice - the granular products like release me will clog up the membrane or something like that.

I also read you should not use the oxygenator in salt or brackish water as it will cause a reaction generating something toxic to the fish, so I've never actually used mine. Most of my fishing is SJR or related/connected areas, so there's some salt everywhere in some proportion even if small. Not sure how brackish (or not brackish, I guess) is acceptable to use the oxygenator - anyone know?

[Thamelau]

I want to said I've read that if you have oxygenators, you should only use G-Juice - the granular products like release me will clog up the membrane or something like that.

I also read you should not use the oxygenator in salt or brackish water as it will cause a reaction generating something toxic to the fish, so I've never actually used mine. Most of my fishing is SJR or related/connected areas, so there's some salt everywhere in some proportion even if small. Not sure how brackish (or not brackish, I guess) is acceptable to use the oxygenator - anyone know?

I thought you specifically could not use the oxygenator with G-Juice, but like I said, I have never looked into it too much.

[78Staff]

I thought you specifically could not use the oxygenator with G-Juice, but like I said, I have never looked into it too much.

According to T&H they work together (admittedly a sales video, but should indicate they are safe to use together.)



To be fair, Glenn from TOF did an quasi infomercial style interview transcript with the makers of Please Release me where they do claim to be safe to use with an Oxygenator also - I won't link to it because it's a competing forum, but if you google oxygenator and please release me it's one of the first non retail links to pop up.

The knock on PRM, C&R, Rejuvenate etc is that since they are salt based the Oxygenator will separate and pull out the salt molecules, leaving chlorine in the water, which is bad for the fish. How true this is, I do not know, but the makers of PRM say it's nonsense...

[Thamelau]

According to T&H they work together (admittedly a sales video, but should indicate they are safe to use together.)



To be fair, Glenn from TOF did an quasi infomercial style interview transcript with the makers of Please Release me where they do claim to be safe to use with an Oxygenator also - I won't link to it because it's a competing forum, but if you google oxygenator and please release me it's one of the first non retail links to pop up.

The knock on PRM, C&R, Rejuvenate etc is that since they are salt based the Oxygenator will separate and pull out the salt molecules, leaving chlorine in the water, which is bad for the fish. How true this is, I do not know, but the makers of PRM say it's nonsense...

Interesting, thanks for the info!

[Mark Perry]

http://www.bbcboards.net/showthread.php?t=734838

[Choppin]

Chlorine is gone after water freezes, I thought the same thing as you for a lone time til I seen a pro explain it. Now I put the ice in live well and don’t have any problems

[SHM64]

I fill a gallon milk jug with water and freeze it. The large divided Skeeter livewell allows me to put the jug in one side and fish in the other. Once the livewell is full I just recirc the water all day/night. I think the large frozen block of ice must stay frozen longer as it usually still has ice in it after 6 hours or so. It has caused a second look or two when livewell checks happen on a numbered blast off but they're used to it now.

[CajunFlipper]

Overflow line can allow bad water in .