If any of y'all who have built-in livewells have a minute, I'd appreciate some input on this.

When I got my boat the pump in the livewell had burned up, so I got an aerator to replace it. On closer inspection it turns out that I've got an intake pump drawing water in thru a hole in the transom through a hose to the livewell. The other one (that burned up) was plumbed to pump water out through a hole in the side of the boat(about a foot above the waterline). The intake hose has a pvc fitting through the transom with a screw-on cap on the outside, I guess to keep critters out. There's a small hole in the bottom of the livewell, so it fills to the water line whenever the boat's in the water. Guess there must have been a plug for it at one time.

I just wanted to see how other guys are managing the livewell.
Do you use an aerator, pump in fresh water, or both?
Which do you think is more effective at keeping fish fresh?
Which is more energy efficient?
Do you run the aerator/pumps 100% of the time when there's fish in there, or if not, what intervals do you use?
What about using the livewell for bait?

thanks a bunch,
jtw

i dont know that much about many different types of boats, but that is a new one on me. the boats i have and have ever messed with have a pump in the back of the transom that pumps water into the livewell and the hole you are talking about on the side of the boat is a over flow that water flushes out of when the livewell gets full. some new boats have pump outs and charger boats have a pro-air system, but again i am not familiar with what you have. is it an older boat?

My boat is an older one that has an aerator pump in the back that pumps fresh water in the livewell. I also have a drain plug that I can pull when I need to drain it. I will usually pull the drain plug allowing the older water to drain out. Once about 2/3 of the water has drained out I will refill the livewell with fresh water. I do this about once or twice an hour depending on how many fish I have in there. I am eventually going to put a recirculating pump in there so that I don't have to drain and refill the livewell every time.

What it sounds like to me is that your livewell was originally set up like mine. An aerator pump to fill the livewell and a drain that you plug up when you want the livewell to stay full. It sounds like someone plumbed the second aerator pump in to be like a recirculating system. The pump that was in the livewell (the one that was burned up) was used to pump old water out while the aerator pump that was at the transom was used to pump fresh water in.

If this is not the case, I would hook it up that way so that you don't have to pull the plug (like me) to drain the livewell every time you want to add fresh water. You just use the one pump (burned up one) to pump out the water while using the transom pump to refill.

It is better to keep fresh water in your livewell if you have fish in it. The fish will deplete the oxygen levels in the water pretty quickly. It doesn't use that much power to run the livewell pumps for short periods of time. You can actually buy a timer that will turn the pump on and off at whatever internal you set it at. Yes, you can use your livewell for bait but you need something else to put your fish in if you use it for a bait tank. I hope this helps.

My Triton came with a pump to add water to the livewell on a time switch. It has an overflow tube to keep water level from over flowing as new water is added regularly. It also came with a pump to drain the livewell. It has another pump to recirculate the water and add air to the water. I added an oxygen generator and fed it into the recirculation line. I kept 20 big sand bass alive for nearly 6 hours in my driveway before cleaning them.

Thanks, guys that answered my question. It's a 1980 vintage Kingfisher 15ft fiberglass bass boat. I think kbob is right about the original configuration. I gonna re-plumb that aerator to pump water out through the overflow so I can control how much water I got in there - it makes a difference weight/balance-wise. and, I found a 5/8 inch plug that fits the drain hole.

I like the idea of a timer - two minutes on/two off = half the power consumption. Or one minute off every five minutes saves 20%.


thanks,
jtw