aerator or airpump?

My question is this, what is better / or in my criteria of better / keeps fish alive the best and uses less amperage - an aerator that recirculates water already in your livewell, or an airpump that pumps bubbles into the livewell? Anyone have experience with both methods?

I ask because during the rebuild of my boat, I bough an aerator (recirculates water already in livewell) and timer circuit for the livewell, but never installed it. I have one mounted on the rear of the boat to pump more water into the livewell, and can drain the old water out. I know that putting new water in is probably best method. But sometimes I fish in some real scummy water and don't want to pump that stuff into the livewell with live fish or risk clogging the pump with weeds and such.

Any ideas?

Will

moving water is always better i have both in my boat and use them all summer long.
you should be able to add an air hose to the pump to add even more oxygen to the water..

The aerator or recirculation pump will keep the water cooler that just the "bubble maker". I don't have a clue about the electrical draw but I would guess the "bubble maker" would be less as it is performing less work.

I have been thinking about a "bubble maker" for my live well. You can get ones that run on AA batteries!

I've always believed bringing fresh water into the livewell is better than recirculating the water the fish have been sitting in.

dyeguy1212 said:

I've always believed bringing fresh water into the livewell is better than recirculating the water the fish have been sitting in.

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Same here. When moving the boat, I usually stop over some of the deepest water I can find and drain/refill the livewell. Deeper water is usually cooler water and cooler water holds more oxygen.

I guess bubbles can't hurt if I can do it cheap enough.

I just put my fill spray bar above the water line.. so it brings in fresh water and makes bubbles.


I've never really bought into the whole air bubble thing anyway.. sure it can't hurt, but I've caught massive health bass who seem to live most of their lives under a sludge pile in 1/2' of water, where theres no current what so ever. Something tells me they aren't even getting all that fresh of water, let alone bubbles :lol: Like I said, it can't hurt, but most aeration kits are priced sky high. I'd rather bring in the same water the fish came from, and leave it at that.

Both work great, i use the bubble maker in a bucket when im bank fishing and it keeps my bait alive all night. You cant go wrong either way

I fish catch-and-release with artificial bait so I don't have a live well. I used to keep aquariums though and I suppose the principles are the same for live wells and fish tanks. Oxygen dissolves into the water at the surface. The bubbles don't add the oxygen to the water, they move the surface of the water to aid in the oxygenation process. It seems to me that for keeping aquarium fish or minnows alive, a bubbler would be ok. The fish are small relative to the surface area of the tank (or live well). I'm not sure a live well with a bubbler only could provide enough oxygenation for large, probably pissed-off fish using a lot of oxygen. There's probably not enough surface area in the live well and not enough movement caused by the bubbles to keep large fish alive.

If you don't want to take in funky lake water, maybe the next best thing would be to recirculate the water in the live well in a way that creates as much water movement as possible. When I was kid my parents owned a resort. The minnow tanks were aerated by jets of water. Even though the water coming in was fresh, it was added by high-velocity jets that stirred up the surface a lot using a minimum of fresh water. The jets were simply caps on the pipe that fed the water with a small hole drilled in the end. The force of the water was as important as the fact the water being added was fresh. Maybe you could devise a way to recirculate the water you have in the live well through a pipe with several small holes to really stir up the surface. I'm pretty sure I saw a thread here somewhere showing a live well that did a similar thing.

If you look in my build you can see how I am building my livewell right now. I have gone through extensive lengths to do research on what is good and what's not. In a live well it just makes sense to bring in fresh water from the body of water the fish are in and take out bad water from in the tank every couple of minutes. I went to Bass Pro Shop and Cabella's to look at their boats to see what the manufactures are putting in the bass boats and most if not all of them were using this type of system. I purchased everything needed for about $100 for a complete system, how much does it cost for just a bubble kit $150 minimum, NOT.

try recirculating the water like that in a livewell here in the south where the surface temps can get into the high 90s fairly easy... you'll see fish here and there start to go belly up

Best thing to do is to fill you livewell that morning, get 1 or 2 refreezable ice packs (the plastic ones that don't lose shape when they thaw) OR a few frozen 16-24oz plastic soda bottles and throw them in then. With the soda bottles, take the cap off and let the water inside the livewell melt the ice inside.

I use the Rule Oxygenator pump to recirculate and induce micro oxygen bubbles in a 40x12x10 aluminum livewell - and this past Saturday the water when it went in was 81*, after 15min it was 68* and stayed at that temp the rest of the day.

I don't turn my pumps on until a fish is in the livewell, then I turn it on manual and let it run the entire time the fish are in there. I've lost 3 fish this year, but it was because of where the hook penetrated their gut or gills.

I have lived in the south and all up and down the Mississippi river. Yes I agree your temps get hot on the surface just like they do here in Phoenix where I live. However, if we were to do some more research you will find that all pro's escpecially ocean going fisherman use systems that circulate fresh water every couple of minutes. There are more reasons to do it this way then just adding O2. As we know fish can dirty the water pretty bad and after a little while this contaminates the fish. By bringing in fresh water and letting the old water out keeps this to a minimum. Another bit of information that I have found is the material used to make the livewell as well as the insulation to keep the temps down. Another thought would be to create a radiator system to keep the water cool. But I guess your ice method seems to work for you, thats good.

WISHBONE said:

Another thought would be to create a radiator system to keep the water cool.

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they've done it... but I'm not paying that much for one!

https://www.koolwell.com/

Yeah I wouldnt pay that price either but we are good at handy work, maybe after I build this boat I can create one that we can use for cheap.

I dont know what the difference is between the Aerator, bubbler and Cycling pump.

I have a little motor driven thing I drop down into the Tank with the Minnows. It makes plenty of bubbles but it warms the water too.

I'm thinking the best of all worlds would be an open pipe to the lake water, and a pump drawing water out of the Tank. That way, cool water coming in would carry some of the little critters the Minnows eat, and keep them cool at the same time.
Am I wrong with that?