Dying fish in livewell...any suggestions?

If you are catching your fish in deep water there may not be much you can do to keep them alive. Fish coming up too quickly form the deep may die unless you get them back down into the deep water quickly. You can't take a fish out of that environment and depressurize it without some adverse effects on the fish.

If you did the same thing to a scuba diver you would have to decompress him/her or they could die from the Bends.

[QUOTE=Born2fish;491309]This time of yea I seem to be killing fish in my livewell. I keep the auto switch on so that it kicks on like every 15 min or so but still seem to have dead fish. I'm looking for some suggestions on what to do to fix or help this problem. I've been told about livewell treatment but don't know what the best kind to ge is or how much to use. Thanks for all the help.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=sweetwater;491394]Must see video about using hydrogen peroxide in livewells. [URL]http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/bass-fishing-hydrogen-peroxide.html[/URL][/QUOTE]


Doug is right about the low concentration of H2O2 in the water. 3% hydrogen peroxide dissolved at a rate of one ounce per 3 gallons of water is not going to do any harm to the fish. It might kill some bacteria in the water or on the fish's scales and that's a good thing if the fish's body slime has been disturbed. It's hard not to remove some slime from a fish's body when you catch them and handle them. The slime is there for a good reason. It protects the fish from bacteria getting into the scales and into the fish's body though the skin.

Is it just me or is the guy in the Video squinting badly? I guess they used bright lights to light the scene and he's squinting due to the bright lights. Makes him look sort of funny. But he's absolutely right one about the chemistry of the Hydrogen Peroxide in the water.

But remember that hot water can't hold as much dissolved oxygen as cooler water. So cooling the water down to the temperature of the water near the thermocline in the hot summer months may be a good thing. Fish that are released after being in the live well for a long time can swim back down to the deeper water without any adverse affects. It's the fish that are in deep cooler water that are brought up to the surface really fast that suffer. The gases inside their body and blood vessels is going to expand with the decrease in pressure and the increase in temperature. That's going to take place with a fish as well as any other animal that breaths air and has dissolved oxygen circulating in their blood. Boyle's and Charles's law don't care what you are man of fish, they will apply.

Small amounts of salt is also very helpful and like many have said always keep frozen bottles in ur cooler every little bit helps we kept a 7 pounder alive two weeks from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. it was the first fish we caught and all we did was recirculate the water that was in the livewell and towards the end of the day we placed a bottle of ice in there and when we put the fish back in he was alive and well the outside temperature was 92 with no wind and no clouds so it was definitely hot. None of the little treatment packs were used just treat your fish in a respectful manner and check on em through out the day and do what you think is necessary to catch a fish they will only die if no oxygen is provided!!!!

[QUOTE=Moveon;491400]If you are catching your fish in deep water there may not be much you can do to keep them alive. Fish coming up too quickly form the deep may die unless you get them back down into the deep water quickly. You can't take a fish out of that environment and depressurize it without some adverse effects on the fish.

If you did the same thing to a scuba diver you would have to decompress him/her or they could die from the Bends.[/QUOTE]


If you don't know how to properly fizz a fish you shouldn't be allowed to fish deep in the summer...Bringing them up from deep causes their swim bladder to overly inflate and they can't keep theirself upright, which will cause them to die...I wasn't a firm believer in fizzing a fish until I saw it actually work on a fish we caught in a tournament....Then a few times during the summer we've came in after a tournament has gone and there will be fish laying on their side on top of the water kicking around unable to go back down....We will ALWAYS take time to stop and fizz these fish and 95% of the time they will go back down....They may not all live but atleast they have a fighting chance...They're guaranteed not to live floating on top of the water

my boat dos'nt have an aerator system so i freeze a gallon jug of water,fill up my live well as soon as the tour. starts and put the jug in there and takes about an hour to thaw and bring the temp down to the 60 to 70 degree range.i never pump more hot water in because i cant keep that much ice around but i hook up an aquarium pump to an outlet in my boat and leave it on all the time.i've had good luck with this and dont lose to many fish unless i pull a donkey-boy move and crimp the line!

First, you need to know what your well is capable of. If you have a recirc, great, that helps. But if your well is always bringing in new lake water, you could be wasting your time with many of the tips here if you try to do both. Think about it, you cool your water, you add more O to the H2O then you turn on your pump and it brings in new water and the treated/cooled water exits your overfill.
If your well is set up to bring in fresh, then you need to decide. Do I bring in fresh more often, or do I treat and hold the current tank full. I'd go with the second option. Do what many have said here with the addition of a bubbler and some ammonia blocker and you'll have some frisky fish when you let them go and save on batteryfrom not running the water pump. A bubbler will do two things for you. It will help add oxygen to the water and it will help dissipate carbon dioxide. ammonia is a byproduct of breathing and pissing and it add up to a killer. There are simple formulas you can get at the pet store that will block it and make it harmless. Cooling the water is essential if you want it to hold absorbed oxygen from any source. Salt, or a fish saver formula (that will mostly be salt and cost you 5-10 times as much) helps calm the fish, protect the fish, and also helps the water hold more dissolved oxygen. If you add a bubbler, cool the water and block ammonia. you won't need to recirc or add hydrogen peroxide. You can if you want, but that would be plenty.

Us striper fishermen have been keeping much more delicate bait fish alive in hot summer months for a long time and the principles applied there can be exactly the same for bass with some minor adjustments.

[QUOTE=mkmsports41;491395]Keeping fish alive has alot to do with your boat. Personally I beleive 15min is too long. When my Triton is set on "Auto" it kicks on every 3 min for a period of 1 min. It pulls lake water in while allowing lake water to run out. I also have a 500gph pump. ....[/QUOTE]

I agree. I had an 18 gallon tank in my center console. Whether it was 90 in KY or 95 in the FL Keys, I set the auto pump on a 3 minute delay, and it would run for 1 minute. With a 500 GPH pump I was constantly turning over the water in the tank, and NEVER had a problem keeping fish or bait. Except for that one time my buddy washed down the boat while we were in the keys. He used my heavy duty nonskid cleaner and it got in the well. After 4 hours of baking in the sun, he opened the well and I thought he was going to hurl. And yes, I made him clean all 30 of those pin fish out. It took a long time to catch those!

Sorry but your assuming that "Fizzing" a fish save them which I don't think is right. I've had a needle stuck into my back in order to draw out 1.5 liters of bloody fluid from my left lung. The procedure is called a "Thoracentesis".

[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoracentesis[/URL]

But a Thoracentesis is performed by a trained Medical Doctor who knows the human anatomy so well that he can stick a long needle into your back and into your lung and not do any real lasting damage. But the human lung is not a swim bladder. And the needle and other equipment is sterilized before use. And the skin is disinfected of bacteria before they stick the needle though the skin in the back. They take care not to introduce bacteria into the body when they perform this Thoracentesis.

Let me tell you what it feels like to have a needle stuck into your back from the Patients point of view. It actually doesn't hurt at all until the next day. The pain of the needle going into your back is not that painful. Not what you would think. But the day afterwards you can barely take a breath. It hurts so bad that you need narcotics to ease the pain and they don't really work that good. You still hurt like He)). If I were a fish I would have died for sure.

The liquid that they remove from your lung is used to lubricate the plural lining that protected the outside of the lung from the inside of the chest cavity. The fluid in the plural space helps the lungs to slide easily inside the chest cavity. Without that fluid there is a lot more friction between the lungs and the chest cavity and it's extremely painful to breath. It takes more than 24 hours before the fluid builds back up in the plural space so that you can breath without pain again. You will hurt for at least a day. And you take in a lot of breaths during that 24 hour period.

The fish's swim bladder is covered with blood vessels that help to put air into the bladder though osmosis and take air out of the bladder. But that takes time and doesn't' happen very quickly. Damage to the air bladder will prevent it from filling back up. You ever try blowing up a balloon with a hole in it? The balloon fills with air only to leak the air out pretty fast.

Fish don't live in a sterile environment. There are all kinds of bacteria, virus and fungus living in the water with the fish. If you go poking an dirty needle into the fish's swim bladder you are going to introduce all kinds of disease causing organisms into the fish's body.

You may think that you are doing the fish a favor but you may just be introducing anthrax or some other bacteria deep into the fish's body. They fish may swim off and you may think you did a good deed by "fizzing" it but a day or two later the fish dies of toxins as the bacteria reproduce out of control inside the fish. Those are the the fish that you see floating in the lake two days after the tournament is over. They die and either float to the surface before later sinking to the depths or they wash up on the bank for all to see that next week.

If anything should be banned it "fizzing" and catching fish deeper than 10 ft.

I'm guilty of catching deep fish but those that I catch are mostly crappie and I take them home for the oven. They die for a purpose. Food for my family and friends.

I know you all mean well but think about what happens to a fish when you try to deflate the swim bladder with a dirty needle. You are not really helping the fish if it swims off and dies two days later.

We would be better off attaching a delayed release clamp to the fish and dropping it back down into the lake's 20 ft deep section to let the fish decompress from the bends.

Scuba divers that stay down too long and have blood that's saturated with compressed nitrogen gas have to go into a decompression chamber if they come up too soon before the nitrogen can get out of their blood steam. Gas under pressure will dissolved more gas molecules into the blood than at the surface. When you go down 33 ft you are under two (2) atmosphere of gas pressure. At the surface you are only under One (1) atmoshpere of gas pressure under normal conditions. One atmosphere of pressure is equal to 760 mm of Hg pressure or about 29" of pressure. You double that when you go down 33ft below the surface. And the increase in pressure on a fish or human is felt most when you get about ten feet down from the surface. That's about the depth that your ear drums start to want to pop if you don't equalize the pressure inside your head and ear canal with the water pressure. You have to push air from your lungs though the estacian tubes into your inner ear before the ear drums cave in from the water pressure on them. Ask any certified scuba diver and they will tell you the same thing.

To see what a bacterial infection can do to an animal just watch the discovery channel and look for the shows about the Venomous Komoto Dragons.

[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon[/URL]

These reptiles will bite a mammal and then let the bacteria in their saliva do the dirty work for them. The animal dies slowly over the next few days from a bacterial infection. The Dragon just has to follow the animal until it's dying in order to have a good meal. They are similar to a poisonous snake biting a big rate and then following the fleeing rats scent until it find the rat dying from the snake's venom.


[QUOTE=Fishin is life;491421]If you don't know how to properly fizz a fish you shouldn't be allowed to fish deep in the summer...Bringing them up from deep causes their swim bladder to overly inflate and they can't keep theirself upright, which will cause them to die...I wasn't a firm believer in fizzing a fish until I saw it actually work on a fish we caught in a tournament....Then a few times during the summer we've came in after a tournament has gone and there will be fish laying on their side on top of the water kicking around unable to go back down....We will ALWAYS take time to stop and fizz these fish and 95% of the time they will go back down....They may not all live but atleast they have a fighting chance...They're guaranteed not to live floating on top of the water[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Moveon;491478]Sorry but your assuming that "Fizzing" a fish save them which I don't think is right. I've had a needle stuck into my back in order to draw out 1.5 liters of bloody fluid from my left lung. The procedure is called a "Thoracentesis".

[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoracentesis[/URL]

But a Thoracentesis is performed by a trained Medical Doctor who knows the human anatomy so well that he can stick a long needle into your back and into your lung and not do any real lasting damage. But the human lung is not a swim bladder. And the needle and other equipment is sterilized before use. And the skin is disinfected of bacteria before they stick the needle though the skin in the back. They take care not to introduce bacteria into the body when they perform this Thoracentesis.

Let me tell you what it feels like to have a needle stuck into your back from the Patients point of view. It actually doesn't hurt at all until the next day. The pain of the needle going into your back is not that painful. Not what you would think. But the day afterwards you can barely take a breath. It hurts so bad that you need narcotics to ease the pain and they don't really work that good. You still hurt like He)). If I were a fish I would have died for sure.

The liquid that they remove from your lung is used to lubricate the plural lining that protected the outside of the lung from the inside of the chest cavity. The fluid in the plural space helps the lungs to slide easily inside the chest cavity. Without that fluid there is a lot more friction between the lungs and the chest cavity and it's extremely painful to breath. It takes more than 24 hours before the fluid builds back up in the plural space so that you can breath without pain again. You will hurt for at least a day. And you take in a lot of breaths during that 24 hour period.

The fish's swim bladder is covered with blood vessels that help to put air into the bladder though osmosis and take air out of the bladder. But that takes time and doesn't' happen very quickly. Damage to the air bladder will prevent it from filling back up. You ever try blowing up a balloon with a hole in it? The balloon fills with air only to leak the air out pretty fast.

Fish don't live in a sterile environment. There are all kinds of bacteria, virus and fungus living in the water with the fish. If you go poking an dirty needle into the fish's swim bladder you are going to introduce all kinds of disease causing organisms into the fish's body.

You may think that you are doing the fish a favor but you may just be introducing anthrax or some other bacteria deep into the fish's body. They fish may swim off and you may think you did a good deed by "fizzing" it but a day or two later the fish dies of toxins as the bacteria reproduce out of control inside the fish. Those are the the fish that you see floating in the lake two days after the tournament is over. They die and either float to the surface before later sinking to the depths or they wash up on the bank for all to see that next week.

If anything should be banned it "fizzing" and catching fish deeper than 10 ft.

I'm guilty of catching deep fish but those that I catch are mostly crappie and I take them home for the oven. They die for a purpose. Food for my family and friends.

I know you all mean well but think about what happens to a fish when you try to deflate the swim bladder with a dirty needle. You are not really helping the fish if it swims off and dies two days later.

We would be better off attaching a delayed release clamp to the fish and dropping it back down into the lake's 20 ft deep section to let the fish decompress from the bends.

Scuba divers that stay down too long and have blood that's saturated with compressed nitrogen gas have to go into a decompression chamber if they come up too soon before the nitrogen can get out of their blood steam. Gas under pressure will dissolved more gas molecules into the blood than at the surface. When you go down 33 ft you are under two (2) atmosphere of gas pressure. At the surface you are only under One (1) atmoshpere of gas pressure under normal conditions. One atmosphere of pressure is equal to 760 mm of Hg pressure or about 29" of pressure. You double that when you go down 33ft below the surface. And the increase in pressure on a fish or human is felt most when you get about ten feet down from the surface. That's about the depth that your ear drums start to want to pop if you don't equalize the pressure inside your head and ear canal with the water pressure. You have to push air from your lungs though the estacian tubes into your inner ear before the ear drums cave in from the water pressure on them. Ask any certified scuba diver and they will tell you the same thing.

To see what a bacterial infection can do to an animal just watch the discovery channel and look for the shows about the Venomous Komoto Dragons.

[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon[/URL]

These reptiles will bite a mammal and then let the bacteria in their saliva do the dirty work for them. The animal dies slowly over the next few days from a bacterial infection. The Dragon just has to follow the animal until it's dying in order to have a good meal. They are similar to a poisonous snake biting a big rate and then following the fleeing rats scent until it find the rat dying from the snake's venom.[/QUOTE]

These long drawn out posts that you've been making lately really have no point....You're saying I should'nt fizz a fish for this reason and that reason...If you're saying I shouldn't fizz it, then you're saying I should let it float on top of the water and watch it die...Reading your posts lately, you obviously think a lot more of yourself and your opinions than anybody else does

Thats why i like CPR,the best thing too do with fish your not going too eat is let them go.:cool: [URL]http://youtu.be/TdCwtNPf3o4[/URL]

Lots of bait fishermen went through the oxygen injection deal. It does work as far as keeping the dissolved levels up and for some things it is essential. It also requires extra space and can be quite dangerous. But in the end, to keep regular bait alive, which are way more delicate that bass, a simple bubbler (just like in aquariums) will do the job. Cool the water some, add a little salt to help hold oxygen and calm the fish and run it full time (as they do not draw much at all) while you have fish in the well. The systems for boats are cheap, easy to install, and easy to maintain. It keeps oxygen levels up and the bubbles help remove harmful carbondioxide. Oxygen systems do not and it doesn't have to be that complicated.

Born2fish,

Don’t feel bad, your not alone. Many tournament bass fishermen are having these same livewell kill problems that your are experiencing now that summer is back, and these livewell kills will get much worse from now through mid September 2012. These are the same livewell problems as last summer. Even the best bass boat aerated livewells and livewell chemicals are failing again to keep your catch alive and that can/will cost you dollars at the weigh-in. This is aggravating because all this stuff you bought to keep the bass alive was suppose to work and eliminate these problems. You believed the infomercials, advertisements and testimonials and you spend your hard earned money for this stuff and now you’re disappointed.

From now on when look in your livewell this summer/next summer and you realize your catch is dead or dying again, you can always look and see what fishery science recommends and does to keep their bass alive even in the hottest summer because they are the real experts, they do the scientific research and publish the scientific white paper.

So shall we venture out of our comfort zone seeking knowledge that’s “out of the box” and see what fisheries scientist have to say about things discussed in this thread, OK? I have nothing against the boat and chemicals manufacturer’s they’re just doing their job and selling products to bass fishermen and making money whether the products work or not, that’s Salesmanship.

Enter the Science:

TPWP, Inland Fisheries Division, San Antonio , TX Publication 6/2011 [B]Oxygenation of Livewells to Improve Survival of Tournament-Caught Bass by Fishery[/B] by Biologist Randy Myers and Jason Driscoll
[URL="http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/didyouknow/inland/livewells.phtml"]http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/didyouknow/inland/livewells.phtml [/URL]

TPWD, Inland Fisheries Division, San Antonio, TX Publication by Fishery Biologist Randy Myers 6/2011 [B]Oxygen Injection Systems[/B]
[URL="http://www.slideshare.net/raminlandfish/livewell-oxygen-injection-8773301"]http://www.slideshare.net/raminlandfish/livewell-oxygen-injection-8773301 [/URL]

TPWD, Inland Fisheries Division, San Antonio, TX Publication by Fishery Biologist Randy Myers [B]AquaInnovations Oxygenator[/B] 2-14-2012
[URL="http://www.slideshare.net/raminlandfish/the-oxygenator-how-effective-is-it"]http://www.slideshare.net/raminlandfish/the-oxygenator-how-effective-is-it [/URL]

TPWD, Inland Fisheries Division, San Antonio , TX Publication by Fishery Biologist Randy Myers 2-14-2012 [B]Hydrogen Peroxide[/B] - A total of 12 one-hour experiments were conducted with oxygen levels measured every 10 minutes. [URL="http://www.slideshare.net/raminlandfish/hydrogen-peroxide-for-bass-boat-livewells"]http://www.slideshare.net/raminlandfish/hydrogen-peroxide-for-bass-boat-livewells [/URL]

Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management: June 2011, Vol 2. No 1. pp.22-28.Doi:10.3996/092010-JFWM-037: [B]Effectiveness of Livewell Additives on Largemouth Bass Survival[/B] [URL]http://www.fwspubs.org/doi/full/10.3996/092010-JFWM-037[/URL]
Results show that the use of livewell water additives, such as salt and ice or their combination, does not significantly reduce tournament-related mortality. Largemouth bass may recover from capture, handling, and livewell confinement stress if water quality is goof (Furimsky et al. 2003: Suski et al. 2004), regardless of livewell additives. Although we did not find significant differences in delayed mortality among the livewell Collectively, these results suggest that the addition of livewell additives does not enhance fish survival following competitive angling events. As a result, we encourage anglers to practice proper fish handling practices as well as maintain good water quality within livewells, as opposed to altering water quality with additives. [GOOD WATER QUALITY – back to [B]Oxygenation of Livewells to Improve Survival of Tournament-Caught Bass by Fishery[/B]

Try a Google search – “livewell oxygen injection systems”, there are websites on the net with really good information about livewell water quality and how to keep tournament bass alive in bass boat livewells in the summer tournaments, but you got to click the clicker to get to the information, then you must read it, then practice the new things you learn to be successful – there is no “luck” to keeping bass alive and healthy in your livewell when you know how professionals employed in fish hatcheries transport live bass.

The ‘Lunker Program’ in Athens; biologist in Texas transport large mature bass hundreds of miles on state highways across the Great State of Texas every summer and the fish don’t dye.

Then you must make a personal choice about how much fish care your really willing to provide for your catch - Is this fish really worth the best fish care possible or not? The best care is not free like air for livewell aerators or cheap like 3% Hydrogen Peroxide.

Born2fish ask for suggestions how to keep his fish alive, these suggestions will get your started on the right tract with real scientific facts that will help you provide better tournament bass care.

Who needs “luck and old wives tales” to try and keep your catch alive after you seek and gain fishery knowledge, then you - choose to provide the best fish care possible all day for your catch.

Success is so easy when you know how to be successful. Keep those gills pink Born2fish and collect that prize at the end of the day.