What are y’all using in your bait tank on your boat to keep the shad alive ? Salt ? Juice ? I just recently installed an extreme oxygen box for extra oxygen in my bait tank. Looking for other ideas that’s good to keep them shad alive. Oh and I also added a green light to that tank too. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Add some rock salt or water softener salt, amquel to help with ammonia levels and a little foam off or powdered coffee creamer for foam build up. It helps to keep the water on the cool side during the heat of the summer as well.

Oxygen is seldom the issue. It's usually too much ammonia or too many scales. I put some zeolite in with my Charcoal. That seems to help. I only have a 17 gallon take so I don't overload it. I can keep 5 dozen threadfins all day, but not many gizzards. The fishing guides might have some good ideas. Won't hurt to ask.

Charcoal ?

I used to have a 32 gallon Greyline bait tank. It had a 3 stage filtration system. Top layer was 3 layers mattress batting material (Buy at Walmart and cut to fit your filter box)). You removed the top 2 layers about 30 minutes apart after you placed the shad in the tank and the 3rd if needed. Then there was a sponge for the 2nd layer that you could remove and wash out if needed (I never did). The 3rd and bottom layer was activated charcoal. I also used a product called Baitlive (25 years ago). I put salt in mine also. I had a well and used fresh well water that was cold. Sometimes used water from the lake if I had to. Make sure the pump is always pumping fresh air into the tank. You can get too much oxygen if you use an oxygen system. I`ve seen shad that acted like they were on speed, because the tank had too much oxygen. I have caught bait at Proctor and brought them home, pumped out all but a few gallons of water and filled back with well water. Leave pump on over night and take to Whitney the next day and Shad were as fresh as if I had just caught them. You can use a defoamer, but if you have to use one, you probably have to many shad to start out with.


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1. add some Diamond CrystalSolar Naturals Water Softener Salt Crystals from home depot (1 put 1/2 cup in 30gal tank) and run your pump for at least 15 minutes to make sure it's all dissolved
2. fill 5 gallon bucket with lake water
3. catch 10-15 shad and put them in the 5 gallon bucket and let them poop and pee for 10 minutes while you have some liquid refreshment and catch your breath before netting and moving them to your bait tank
4. dump 5 gallon water back in lake
5. repeat steps 2 - 4 until you have enough shad for your trip (the larger the shad, the fewer your tank will support)

my bait tank and filter stay pretty clean for about 6 hours
my bait tank has a venturi tube on the pump for aeration, and is on a timer like the livewell so that the heat produced by the pump has time to dissipate (hot water is your enemy)

shad seem to like it and stay lively for me

So I put an oxygen box in my rear livewell on my nautic star roughly 15 gallons and I’m trying to keep them alive fir the day fishing trip. All this is good info but this may be a dumb question why wouldn’t just the regular lake water work ? That’s where they are caught from as they are not coming from salt water ?

I had a pump that I filled my tank up with from the lake water when I was camping on the lake. Worked fine, I just liked having it filled with well water (about 60 degrees), salt and bait live when I got on the water. The aerator had been on for at least an hour also and oxygenating the water in the tank.

It's all about reducing the effects of stress that the shad go through.
(Be careful as too much salt will kill the shad, you need to find the right amount for your size tank, and only add once when your setup your tank for the day)

this is from another article https://tnstripedbass.com/wp-content/uploads/KeithShannonsKeepingBaitPresentation2014.pdf

"Freshwater fish expend energy to maintain salts in their bodies through a process called osmoregulation.
Stress and mucus loss interferes with osmoregulation. As a result, fish lose precious salts from their bodies.
Excessive salt loss can cause death by coronary arrest, blood acidification and/or ammonia accumulation.
Adding salts to the bait tank water prevents your bait from losing salts."

put your shad in a bucket, aerate & change the water after 5 minutes (i use a dip net). i just use a bubbler. too much flow in your live well will over stress them.