GUIDE TO FISHING AERATION AND OXYGEN SYSTEMS
Understanding the Concept Between Aeration and Oxygenation Systems
What’s the real difference between aeration and oxygenation? Facts and Myths
by
DAVID A. KINSER
OXYGENATION SYSTEMS OF TEXAS
OXYGEN EDGE ™
Live bait and tournament game fish die in overcrowded boat livewells and $300 bait tanks every summer. It’s air, aeration (low O2 Saturation/suffocation) that kills them, not the hot livewell water.
In summer “Catch and Release” fishing tournaments, keeping Live Bait “Supercharged,” alive, and healthy all day or for several days and getting your tournament fish to the weigh-in is a problem for many fishermen. Summer livewell problems causes much angst and stress for fishermen, it’s predictable every summer. Failure is always expensive. Dead live bait and dead tournament fish are expensive.
Transporting live bait and tournament fish in overcrowded livewells and bait tanks successfully every summer is easy to do if you really understand the difference between aeration systems and oxygen system; if you can maintain minimal safe livewell water quality in your livewell; specifically – if you can maintain minimal safe livewell dissolved oxygen saturation for all your live bait and tournament fish.
If you cannot maintain minimal safe water quality in your livewell in the summer, your live bait will get sloppy, red nose and die and you may lose the tournament prize because 1 fish died in your livewell and cost you the “dead fish punishment.”
There are many old fisherman’s myths confusing livewell aeration and oxygenation
Myth #1: The most common myth is: air is oxygen and oxygen is air. Plenty of air ensures plenty of oxygen. Plenty of air bubbles guarantees plenty of oxygen.
FACT: Air and oxygen are two very different gases. Air is a mixture of different gases, consisting mostly of Nitrogen gas and a little dab of oxygen gas.
Myth #2: More air bubbles in bait tanks or livewells ensures plenty of oxygen for all the bait and fish.
Henrys Gas Law debunks this myth – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry's_law
“At a constant temperature, the amount of a given gas that dissolves in a given type and volume of liquid [water] is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas in equilibrium with that liquid.”
FACT: At sea level, the gas partial pressure (gas tension) of 21%oxygen in air is only 159 mm/hg. The partial pressure of 99.5%compressed oxygen (livewell oxygen supplementation) at sea level is 760 mm/hg. Oxygen tension affects freshwater, saltwater fish and people equally. The high oxygen tension is what supercharges live bait. High oxygen tension makes fresh live bait abnormally strong and abnormally active and often the difference between life or death in summer livewells. The difference of oxygen tension between air and compressed oxygen at sea level is 601 mm/hg.
Myth #3: Larger water pumps are good, they pump more water and provide plenty of oxygen; more water pumped through a livewell ensures more oxygen for the bait.
FACT: Water pumps only pump water, they do not pump oxygen. This is similar to myth #2.
Myth #4: High concentrations of dissolved oxygen (15 mg/L – DO Supersaturation ) is toxic and will kill (poison) live bait and tournament fish in livewells during live transports.
FACT: This is not true for live transports, but micro-fine oxygen bubbles suspended in the livewell water column that makes livewell water look milky is toxic, can and does burn gill tissue and corneas everywhere the micro-fine oxygen bubble sticks on the fish.
Myth #5: The shape of the livewell is more important than sustaining minimal safe water quality inside the livewell. Square corners livewells kill bait because the bait trap themselves in 90 degree corners, bang their heads into the corner walls and commit suicide.
FACT: Fish and bait do not commit suicide, but they do suffocate and die in hypoxic livewell water. Fish live fine in square corner livewells if the fisherman will provide minimal safe water quality/ minimal safe DO Saturation in his livewell. Round or oval livewells do reduce blunt trauma during active transport in choppy water. When washed around in a livewell, a glancing blow against the livewell wall causes less injury than hitting a wall at 90 degrees.
GAS BUBBLES in LIVEWELL WATER – SO TINY THEY REMAIN IN SUSPENSION AND MAKE THE WATER LOOK MILKY
FACT: CHEMISTRY/PHYSICS VIEW: Smaller bubbles provide more surface area than larger bubbles increasing the gas diffusion speed of air or oxygen into water.
FACT: FISH PHYSIOLOGY VIEW: Millions of micro-fine oxygen bubbles (100% oxygen) suspended in the livewell water column, so concentrated the livewell water looks milky, sticks to the fish and live bait oxidizing and chemically burning gill filaments, corneas, mucus membranes, scales, mucus membrane and skin.
The micro-fine oxygen bubble is the killer, not the high dissolved oxygen concentration (PPM DO Concentration). Pure oxygen gas is a powerful oxidizer.
FACT: FISH PHYSIOLOGY VIEW: Millions of micro-fine air bubbles (80% nitrogen) suspended in the livewell water column, so concentrated the livewell water looks milky causes nitrogen supersaturation, nitrogen poisoning, pop-eye, bends, tissue emphysema and gas embolism. Entraining air into the inlet side of a livewell pump intentionally with an air entrainment venture device or an accidental air leak on the inlet side of the water pump sucking in air cause this problem.
Millions of micro-fine air bubbles suspended in the livewell water column cause dissolved nitrogen supersaturation – DN2 Supersaturation is the killer.
FACTS FOR HUMANS, FISH and LIVE BAIT FISH
Humans and fish are aerobic “oxygen loving” organisms. Both experience suffocation, cellular death and irreversible central nervous system damage in minutes without a safe continuous supply of oxygen of sufficient high concentration and volume. Both require a constant supply of oxygen in concentrations high enough to ensure minimal safe cellular metabolism. State and Federal fish hatcheries have well established oxygenation guidelines specifically for live fish transports. Both must have supplemental oxygen greater than 21% to reverse and correct acute cellular oxygen debt as quickly as possible.
Fishermen often overcrowd aerated livewells and bait tanks in the summer resulting in deadly poor water quality, deadly low dissolved oxygen. Although the aerator is working perfectly, insufficient dissolved oxygen saturation is the primary live bait and tournament fish killer every summer. Sustained chronic hypoxia causes slow suffocation in livewells and bait tanks ensuring high mortality, morbidity and disease for captive fish and bait fish being transported without enough oxygen.
Both man and fish die quickly breathing air every day, dying from lack of oxygen. That’s why the first thing EMT’s do upon arriving at an emergency call is administer pure oxygen with an oxygen mask to reverse the cellular oxygen debt immediately. If fresh air would correct a low oxygen problem, there would be no need for EMTs to have or administer oxygen. A cheap portable electric fan would work fine. Providing a constant supply of oxygen, in minimal safe concentrations and volume, is a matter of life or death for man, fish, dog and cat.
FACT: Air is not oxygen. http://oxyedge-chum.com/oxygen-is-not-air/
FACTS ABOUT LIVE FISH TRANSPORTED IN LIVEWELLS AND BAIT TANKS
Without supplemental oxygen, overcrowded, aerated, summer livewells and bait tanks are death-wells.
Live bait fishermen know that live baitfish and tournament game fish become lethargic quickly and die without enough dissolved oxygen in livewells and bait tanks, especially in the summer. Sloppy, red-nose live bait is worthless to the serious live bait fisherman that needs high quality live bait. Live baiters always choose the most active baits in the livewell first, before they get lethargic, red-nose and die.
LIVE BAIT AND FISH CONSUME OXYGEN CONTINUOUSLY IN LIVEWELLS – HOW MUCH OXYGEN DO THEY NEED?
They need this much oxygen during transport http://oxyedge-chum.com/how-much-oxygen/
Dissolved oxygen is not consumed or depleted in livewells and bait tanks that contain no live bait or fish. It off-gasses slowly equalizing to the atmosphere. Testing DO in livewell water devoid of fish or live bait is meaningless.
Oxygen is consumed and depleted constantly in livewells that contain live bait and fish. More live bait or fish in livewells and bait tanks require more dissolved oxygen, less bait or fish require less oxygen.
How much oxygen do bait fish need? Twenty-five pounds of live bait require twenty-five times more oxygen than one pound of live bait. The minimal safe amount of oxygen required is 100% DO Saturation or greater (DO Super-saturation) if there is 1 lb. of bait, 25 lbs., or 100 lbs. of live bait.
Fishermen can keep fish alive and healthy for days or weeks if they ensure minimal safe oxygenation and occasionally remove the metabolic toxins (exchange or ventilate the livewell water).
The size, shape and color of your livewell and bait tanks is far less important than maintaining minimal safe water quality. Livewell and bait tanks’ water quality is the key to successful live bait and tournament fish transport.
Ensuring minimal safe dissolved oxygen is the most important livewell water quality parameter.
AERATION, LIVEWELL AERATORS, SPRAY BARS, LIVEWELL PUMPS WITH AIR VENTURIES FOR LIVEWELLS AND BAIT TANKS ARE NO MORE THAN ELECTRIC FANS THAT BLOW AIR ON PEOPLE
Why does air (mechanical aeration) kill your live bait and tournament fish in your livewell every summer?
Overstocking your livewell depletes dissolved oxygen, live bait and tournament fish suffocate in summer livewells because of low oxygen levels. The reason for your livewell kill is simple – HYPOXIA. The fisherman causes this kill because he fails to provide minimal safe DO’s during transport. The fisherman can fix this problem by either reducing the stocking density, put less fish and bait in the livewell, or provide more oxygen continuously.
More air will not ensure minimal safe oxygenation in your summer livewell. Air is your problem: Visit Henry’s Gas Law and see why air is killing your bait and fish in the summer.
AERATORS ARE NOT SNORKELS
AERATORS ARE LIKE ELECTRIC FANS TO HUMANS – THEY DELIVER AIR, not oxygen
FACT: Snorkels increase mechanical dead space, rebreathing mechanical dead space gas increasing CO2 concentrations in the body.
FACT: You cannot effectively inhale or breathe through a snorkel when you are deeper than 3 feet below the water surface or 1.47 psi compressing your chest.
WHY NOT? Because, you cannot expand your chest or lungs because the water pressure is too great, you will tire quickly, hypoventilation, suffocate and die. All certified SCUBA divers know that breathing through a long snorkel is deadly. It’s harder to breathe through a snorkel with a small internal diameter than one with a larger internal diameter.
Why? The airway resistance is much greater in small bore snorkels than larger bore snorkels plus the longer the snorkel the more airway resistance the more work required to breath. You can suffocate (asphyxiate) and die breathing through a long snorkel because of excessive mechanical dead space ventilation. You are rebreathing your exhaled gas high in CO2 with low to no O2. Rebreathing higher concentrations of CO2 cause CO2 narcosis, respiratory acidosis and death.
An aerator provides air, not oxygen. When a mechanical aeration device cannot provide minimal safe amounts of oxygen for all the fish and live bait in the livewell, it will not matter how large the livewell is, the bait and fish will get sick and die.
Mechanical aeration is a poor choice of livewell equipment if fixing low livewell oxygen levels in overcrowded summer livewells if your goal is to ensure minimal dissolved oxygen saturations in your summer livewell water. Even some mechanical aerators claim to produce millions of micro-fine air bubbles, bait continues to suffocate in summer livewells because there is not enough oxygen.
Mechanical aeration (air bubbles and spray bars increase gas diffusion at the surface of the water) reducing dissolved CO2 concentrations, reducing acid concentrations in livewell water and off-gas some ammonia.
TOXIC METABOLIC WASTE (LIVEWELL POISON) – CO2, ACID PH, AMMONIA, NITRITES, URINE, VOMIT AND THE BIG CHUNKS VISIBLE IN LIVEWELL WATER
While ensuring minimal safe oxygenation is the primary water quality issue for live transport, especially in the summer, the second most important water issue is controlling metabolic toxins. The primary and only reason for changing livewell water is to ventilate the metabolic waste and reduce the toxicity to a safe concentration ensuring minimal safe livewell water quality. Exchanging the total livewell water volume several times daily is sufficient to control metabolic toxins in livewells. High volume livewell pumps that change total livewell water volume every 5-10-30 minutes is unnecessary to control metabolic toxins.
IS GENTLE, FLOWING WATER IN LIVEWELLS REALLY NECESSARY?
Bait fish are not bottom dwellers, they live above the bottom at different locations throughout the water column.
When you transport live fish, there is plenty of water sloshing in your livewell during transport to move, stir and mix the water preventing any stagnation points at any location inside your livewell. Turbulent water inside your livewell can physically injure live bait, causing abrasions, fractures and red-nose. All physical trauma increases livewell mortality and morbidity (negatively affects live bait quality).
What is the reason for high volume livewell pumps and plenty of fast moving water constantly flushing your livewell anyway?
FACT: Turbulent fast moving livewell water causes fish to constantly swim harder in order to maintain equilibrium and prevent being washed into the livewell walls.
FACT: Turbulent fast moving livewell water dramatically increases metabolism, increases cellular oxygen demand, increases oxygen uptake per pound of fish, and increases cellular oxygen debt quickly when livewell dissolved oxygen levels falls below 100% DO Saturation in transport.
FACT: Capture, captivity, transport, netting, handling, overcrowding and poor livewell water quality cause live bait stress. The deadliest stress is oxygen deprivation in overcrowded aerated summer livewells.
FACT: The first response fish exhibit under stress of any kind is excessive mucus production. The greater the stress the more mucus (fish slime) they excrete. Mucus is protein… that’s seen as slime and nasty brown bubbles in the livewell water!
FACT: Reducing the stressors will reduce slime and foam in livewell water. Foam is a warning that livewell water quality is poor and needs fixing. Fishermen like to hide ugly foam with detergents and anti-foaming livewell chemicals while avoiding the cause of the foam and slime… the poor livewell water quality.
Do you really believe that constantly changing your total livewell water volume 6-10-20 times per hour is necessary to control toxic metabolic waste in your livewell?
Do your really believe a constant flow of water in your livewell moving clock-wise is necessary in the northern hemisphere?
SHRIMP TRANSPORTED IN LIVEWELLS AND BAIT TANKS
Shrimp are bottom dwellers, they becoming aggressive and hostile when overcrowded, forced to stack and touching each other in livewells. Shrimp need plenty of livewell bottom space to spread out to prevent stacking or even touching each other. When shrimp are stacked too close and overcrowded, they kill their neighbors, eat their neighbors, pinch off legs, bodies and eyes which dramatically increases mortality and morbidity. Shrimp survive poorly with legs and eyes traumatically amputated and broken by their captive neighbors and they can’t spread out enough on the floor of the livewell or escape the more aggressive ones.
Webbing hung inside the livewell does offers more space to spread out and avoid hostile neighbors in shrimp tanks.
Shrimp also require minimal safe water quality to keep alive and remain healthy in livewells and bait tanks. The #1 issue in livewell water for shrimp is maintaining minimal safe DO saturations.
AIR BUBBLES – BUBBLE SIZE – HOW MUCH BUBBLES
FACTS ABOUT AIR BUBBLES http://oxyedge-chum.com/toxic-oxygen-bubbles/
Air bubbles are air bubbles, micro-fine air bubbles can provide a lot of aeration and nitrogen supersaturation. A lot of aeration means a lot of dissolved nitrogen and very little dissolved oxygen. A lot of aeration with millions of micro-fine air bubbles does not ensure minimal safe dissolved oxygen saturation in your overstocked summer livewell:
See Henry’s Gas Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry’s_law
Air is not Oxygen http://oxyedge-chum.com/oxygen-is-not-air
WATER TEMPERATURE CONTROLS FISH METABOLISM, FISH METABOLISM IS LIMITED BY DISSOLVED OXYGEN – FISH PHYSIOLOGY 101
Environmental water @ 70 F exposed to air or aeration limits livewell stocking density because of the limited concentration of oxygen (21%) in fresh air at normobaric conditions.
FACT: Henry’s Gas Law – The warmer the water the less oxygen it will hold under these conditions. The greater the salinity, the less dissolved oxygen water will hold. The greater the livewell stocking density, the more oxygen is required.
SUPERCHARGING LIVE BAIT WITH PURE COMPRESSED OXYGEN http://oxyedge-chum.com/supercharge-live-baits/
Supercharging is not possible with air and mechanical aeration.
Air at normobaric conditions: 21% oxygen gas tension is only is 159 mm/hg.
This is “Supercharging” – Pure 100% oxygen at normobaric conditions gas tension is 760 mm/hg. Supercharging requires continuous exposure to an additional 601 mm/hg oxygen tension.
FACT: High DO Supersaturation in live well water causes high arterial blood supersaturation in live bait… that is how fishermen create the livewell conditions for supercharging live bait. That is why supercharged live bait are unnaturally made in livewells and bait tanks in the summer. That is why supercharged live bait is so special for the serious offshore and inshore live bait fisherman, especially in the summer. PURE OXYGEN COMBINED WITH HIGH CONCENTRATIONS OF PURE ADRENALINE CREATE AN ABNORMALLY STRONG, DURABLE BAIT FISH UNSEEN IN THE WILD.
When using Supercharged live bait – never chill your livewell water with ice. If you are fishing in 90 F water keep you livewell water temperature 90 degrees F.
All live bait fishermen know what happens to chilled (75 F) live bait in aerated livewells and bait tanks when it is hooked up and tossed into summer 90 F environmental water from where it came from minutes or a few hours ago. Your live bait becomes lethargic immediately and dies quickly on the hook in that hot water. You are fishing with dead bait then.
FACT: In the summer – The acute effects of temperature shock are much greater when your live bait or tournament fish go from cooler iced live well water back to hot environmental water with low dissolved oxygen. The temperature shock you cause from the acute change of temperature from your cool livewell to warm, summer environmental water is a killer.
Live bait fishermen know this kind of temperature shock well and experience this every summer when ice is used to induce hypothermia by chilling summer livewell water.
Happy New Year! Reading material for a cold snowy day in January 2015
Tony M
Understanding the Concept Between Aeration and Oxygenation Systems
What’s the real difference between aeration and oxygenation? Facts and Myths
by
DAVID A. KINSER
OXYGENATION SYSTEMS OF TEXAS
OXYGEN EDGE ™
Live bait and tournament game fish die in overcrowded boat livewells and $300 bait tanks every summer. It’s air, aeration (low O2 Saturation/suffocation) that kills them, not the hot livewell water.
In summer “Catch and Release” fishing tournaments, keeping Live Bait “Supercharged,” alive, and healthy all day or for several days and getting your tournament fish to the weigh-in is a problem for many fishermen. Summer livewell problems causes much angst and stress for fishermen, it’s predictable every summer. Failure is always expensive. Dead live bait and dead tournament fish are expensive.
Transporting live bait and tournament fish in overcrowded livewells and bait tanks successfully every summer is easy to do if you really understand the difference between aeration systems and oxygen system; if you can maintain minimal safe livewell water quality in your livewell; specifically – if you can maintain minimal safe livewell dissolved oxygen saturation for all your live bait and tournament fish.
If you cannot maintain minimal safe water quality in your livewell in the summer, your live bait will get sloppy, red nose and die and you may lose the tournament prize because 1 fish died in your livewell and cost you the “dead fish punishment.”
There are many old fisherman’s myths confusing livewell aeration and oxygenation
Myth #1: The most common myth is: air is oxygen and oxygen is air. Plenty of air ensures plenty of oxygen. Plenty of air bubbles guarantees plenty of oxygen.
FACT: Air and oxygen are two very different gases. Air is a mixture of different gases, consisting mostly of Nitrogen gas and a little dab of oxygen gas.
Myth #2: More air bubbles in bait tanks or livewells ensures plenty of oxygen for all the bait and fish.
Henrys Gas Law debunks this myth – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry's_law
“At a constant temperature, the amount of a given gas that dissolves in a given type and volume of liquid [water] is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas in equilibrium with that liquid.”
FACT: At sea level, the gas partial pressure (gas tension) of 21%oxygen in air is only 159 mm/hg. The partial pressure of 99.5%compressed oxygen (livewell oxygen supplementation) at sea level is 760 mm/hg. Oxygen tension affects freshwater, saltwater fish and people equally. The high oxygen tension is what supercharges live bait. High oxygen tension makes fresh live bait abnormally strong and abnormally active and often the difference between life or death in summer livewells. The difference of oxygen tension between air and compressed oxygen at sea level is 601 mm/hg.
Myth #3: Larger water pumps are good, they pump more water and provide plenty of oxygen; more water pumped through a livewell ensures more oxygen for the bait.
FACT: Water pumps only pump water, they do not pump oxygen. This is similar to myth #2.
Myth #4: High concentrations of dissolved oxygen (15 mg/L – DO Supersaturation ) is toxic and will kill (poison) live bait and tournament fish in livewells during live transports.
FACT: This is not true for live transports, but micro-fine oxygen bubbles suspended in the livewell water column that makes livewell water look milky is toxic, can and does burn gill tissue and corneas everywhere the micro-fine oxygen bubble sticks on the fish.
Myth #5: The shape of the livewell is more important than sustaining minimal safe water quality inside the livewell. Square corners livewells kill bait because the bait trap themselves in 90 degree corners, bang their heads into the corner walls and commit suicide.
FACT: Fish and bait do not commit suicide, but they do suffocate and die in hypoxic livewell water. Fish live fine in square corner livewells if the fisherman will provide minimal safe water quality/ minimal safe DO Saturation in his livewell. Round or oval livewells do reduce blunt trauma during active transport in choppy water. When washed around in a livewell, a glancing blow against the livewell wall causes less injury than hitting a wall at 90 degrees.
GAS BUBBLES in LIVEWELL WATER – SO TINY THEY REMAIN IN SUSPENSION AND MAKE THE WATER LOOK MILKY
FACT: CHEMISTRY/PHYSICS VIEW: Smaller bubbles provide more surface area than larger bubbles increasing the gas diffusion speed of air or oxygen into water.
FACT: FISH PHYSIOLOGY VIEW: Millions of micro-fine oxygen bubbles (100% oxygen) suspended in the livewell water column, so concentrated the livewell water looks milky, sticks to the fish and live bait oxidizing and chemically burning gill filaments, corneas, mucus membranes, scales, mucus membrane and skin.
The micro-fine oxygen bubble is the killer, not the high dissolved oxygen concentration (PPM DO Concentration). Pure oxygen gas is a powerful oxidizer.
FACT: FISH PHYSIOLOGY VIEW: Millions of micro-fine air bubbles (80% nitrogen) suspended in the livewell water column, so concentrated the livewell water looks milky causes nitrogen supersaturation, nitrogen poisoning, pop-eye, bends, tissue emphysema and gas embolism. Entraining air into the inlet side of a livewell pump intentionally with an air entrainment venture device or an accidental air leak on the inlet side of the water pump sucking in air cause this problem.
Millions of micro-fine air bubbles suspended in the livewell water column cause dissolved nitrogen supersaturation – DN2 Supersaturation is the killer.
FACTS FOR HUMANS, FISH and LIVE BAIT FISH
Humans and fish are aerobic “oxygen loving” organisms. Both experience suffocation, cellular death and irreversible central nervous system damage in minutes without a safe continuous supply of oxygen of sufficient high concentration and volume. Both require a constant supply of oxygen in concentrations high enough to ensure minimal safe cellular metabolism. State and Federal fish hatcheries have well established oxygenation guidelines specifically for live fish transports. Both must have supplemental oxygen greater than 21% to reverse and correct acute cellular oxygen debt as quickly as possible.
Fishermen often overcrowd aerated livewells and bait tanks in the summer resulting in deadly poor water quality, deadly low dissolved oxygen. Although the aerator is working perfectly, insufficient dissolved oxygen saturation is the primary live bait and tournament fish killer every summer. Sustained chronic hypoxia causes slow suffocation in livewells and bait tanks ensuring high mortality, morbidity and disease for captive fish and bait fish being transported without enough oxygen.
Both man and fish die quickly breathing air every day, dying from lack of oxygen. That’s why the first thing EMT’s do upon arriving at an emergency call is administer pure oxygen with an oxygen mask to reverse the cellular oxygen debt immediately. If fresh air would correct a low oxygen problem, there would be no need for EMTs to have or administer oxygen. A cheap portable electric fan would work fine. Providing a constant supply of oxygen, in minimal safe concentrations and volume, is a matter of life or death for man, fish, dog and cat.
FACT: Air is not oxygen. http://oxyedge-chum.com/oxygen-is-not-air/
FACTS ABOUT LIVE FISH TRANSPORTED IN LIVEWELLS AND BAIT TANKS
Without supplemental oxygen, overcrowded, aerated, summer livewells and bait tanks are death-wells.
Live bait fishermen know that live baitfish and tournament game fish become lethargic quickly and die without enough dissolved oxygen in livewells and bait tanks, especially in the summer. Sloppy, red-nose live bait is worthless to the serious live bait fisherman that needs high quality live bait. Live baiters always choose the most active baits in the livewell first, before they get lethargic, red-nose and die.
LIVE BAIT AND FISH CONSUME OXYGEN CONTINUOUSLY IN LIVEWELLS – HOW MUCH OXYGEN DO THEY NEED?
They need this much oxygen during transport http://oxyedge-chum.com/how-much-oxygen/
Dissolved oxygen is not consumed or depleted in livewells and bait tanks that contain no live bait or fish. It off-gasses slowly equalizing to the atmosphere. Testing DO in livewell water devoid of fish or live bait is meaningless.
Oxygen is consumed and depleted constantly in livewells that contain live bait and fish. More live bait or fish in livewells and bait tanks require more dissolved oxygen, less bait or fish require less oxygen.
How much oxygen do bait fish need? Twenty-five pounds of live bait require twenty-five times more oxygen than one pound of live bait. The minimal safe amount of oxygen required is 100% DO Saturation or greater (DO Super-saturation) if there is 1 lb. of bait, 25 lbs., or 100 lbs. of live bait.
Fishermen can keep fish alive and healthy for days or weeks if they ensure minimal safe oxygenation and occasionally remove the metabolic toxins (exchange or ventilate the livewell water).
The size, shape and color of your livewell and bait tanks is far less important than maintaining minimal safe water quality. Livewell and bait tanks’ water quality is the key to successful live bait and tournament fish transport.
Ensuring minimal safe dissolved oxygen is the most important livewell water quality parameter.
AERATION, LIVEWELL AERATORS, SPRAY BARS, LIVEWELL PUMPS WITH AIR VENTURIES FOR LIVEWELLS AND BAIT TANKS ARE NO MORE THAN ELECTRIC FANS THAT BLOW AIR ON PEOPLE
Why does air (mechanical aeration) kill your live bait and tournament fish in your livewell every summer?
Overstocking your livewell depletes dissolved oxygen, live bait and tournament fish suffocate in summer livewells because of low oxygen levels. The reason for your livewell kill is simple – HYPOXIA. The fisherman causes this kill because he fails to provide minimal safe DO’s during transport. The fisherman can fix this problem by either reducing the stocking density, put less fish and bait in the livewell, or provide more oxygen continuously.
More air will not ensure minimal safe oxygenation in your summer livewell. Air is your problem: Visit Henry’s Gas Law and see why air is killing your bait and fish in the summer.
AERATORS ARE NOT SNORKELS
AERATORS ARE LIKE ELECTRIC FANS TO HUMANS – THEY DELIVER AIR, not oxygen
FACT: Snorkels increase mechanical dead space, rebreathing mechanical dead space gas increasing CO2 concentrations in the body.
FACT: You cannot effectively inhale or breathe through a snorkel when you are deeper than 3 feet below the water surface or 1.47 psi compressing your chest.
WHY NOT? Because, you cannot expand your chest or lungs because the water pressure is too great, you will tire quickly, hypoventilation, suffocate and die. All certified SCUBA divers know that breathing through a long snorkel is deadly. It’s harder to breathe through a snorkel with a small internal diameter than one with a larger internal diameter.
Why? The airway resistance is much greater in small bore snorkels than larger bore snorkels plus the longer the snorkel the more airway resistance the more work required to breath. You can suffocate (asphyxiate) and die breathing through a long snorkel because of excessive mechanical dead space ventilation. You are rebreathing your exhaled gas high in CO2 with low to no O2. Rebreathing higher concentrations of CO2 cause CO2 narcosis, respiratory acidosis and death.
An aerator provides air, not oxygen. When a mechanical aeration device cannot provide minimal safe amounts of oxygen for all the fish and live bait in the livewell, it will not matter how large the livewell is, the bait and fish will get sick and die.
Mechanical aeration is a poor choice of livewell equipment if fixing low livewell oxygen levels in overcrowded summer livewells if your goal is to ensure minimal dissolved oxygen saturations in your summer livewell water. Even some mechanical aerators claim to produce millions of micro-fine air bubbles, bait continues to suffocate in summer livewells because there is not enough oxygen.
Mechanical aeration (air bubbles and spray bars increase gas diffusion at the surface of the water) reducing dissolved CO2 concentrations, reducing acid concentrations in livewell water and off-gas some ammonia.
TOXIC METABOLIC WASTE (LIVEWELL POISON) – CO2, ACID PH, AMMONIA, NITRITES, URINE, VOMIT AND THE BIG CHUNKS VISIBLE IN LIVEWELL WATER
While ensuring minimal safe oxygenation is the primary water quality issue for live transport, especially in the summer, the second most important water issue is controlling metabolic toxins. The primary and only reason for changing livewell water is to ventilate the metabolic waste and reduce the toxicity to a safe concentration ensuring minimal safe livewell water quality. Exchanging the total livewell water volume several times daily is sufficient to control metabolic toxins in livewells. High volume livewell pumps that change total livewell water volume every 5-10-30 minutes is unnecessary to control metabolic toxins.
IS GENTLE, FLOWING WATER IN LIVEWELLS REALLY NECESSARY?
Bait fish are not bottom dwellers, they live above the bottom at different locations throughout the water column.
When you transport live fish, there is plenty of water sloshing in your livewell during transport to move, stir and mix the water preventing any stagnation points at any location inside your livewell. Turbulent water inside your livewell can physically injure live bait, causing abrasions, fractures and red-nose. All physical trauma increases livewell mortality and morbidity (negatively affects live bait quality).
What is the reason for high volume livewell pumps and plenty of fast moving water constantly flushing your livewell anyway?
FACT: Turbulent fast moving livewell water causes fish to constantly swim harder in order to maintain equilibrium and prevent being washed into the livewell walls.
FACT: Turbulent fast moving livewell water dramatically increases metabolism, increases cellular oxygen demand, increases oxygen uptake per pound of fish, and increases cellular oxygen debt quickly when livewell dissolved oxygen levels falls below 100% DO Saturation in transport.
FACT: Capture, captivity, transport, netting, handling, overcrowding and poor livewell water quality cause live bait stress. The deadliest stress is oxygen deprivation in overcrowded aerated summer livewells.
FACT: The first response fish exhibit under stress of any kind is excessive mucus production. The greater the stress the more mucus (fish slime) they excrete. Mucus is protein… that’s seen as slime and nasty brown bubbles in the livewell water!
FACT: Reducing the stressors will reduce slime and foam in livewell water. Foam is a warning that livewell water quality is poor and needs fixing. Fishermen like to hide ugly foam with detergents and anti-foaming livewell chemicals while avoiding the cause of the foam and slime… the poor livewell water quality.
Do you really believe that constantly changing your total livewell water volume 6-10-20 times per hour is necessary to control toxic metabolic waste in your livewell?
Do your really believe a constant flow of water in your livewell moving clock-wise is necessary in the northern hemisphere?
SHRIMP TRANSPORTED IN LIVEWELLS AND BAIT TANKS
Shrimp are bottom dwellers, they becoming aggressive and hostile when overcrowded, forced to stack and touching each other in livewells. Shrimp need plenty of livewell bottom space to spread out to prevent stacking or even touching each other. When shrimp are stacked too close and overcrowded, they kill their neighbors, eat their neighbors, pinch off legs, bodies and eyes which dramatically increases mortality and morbidity. Shrimp survive poorly with legs and eyes traumatically amputated and broken by their captive neighbors and they can’t spread out enough on the floor of the livewell or escape the more aggressive ones.
Webbing hung inside the livewell does offers more space to spread out and avoid hostile neighbors in shrimp tanks.
Shrimp also require minimal safe water quality to keep alive and remain healthy in livewells and bait tanks. The #1 issue in livewell water for shrimp is maintaining minimal safe DO saturations.
AIR BUBBLES – BUBBLE SIZE – HOW MUCH BUBBLES
FACTS ABOUT AIR BUBBLES http://oxyedge-chum.com/toxic-oxygen-bubbles/
Air bubbles are air bubbles, micro-fine air bubbles can provide a lot of aeration and nitrogen supersaturation. A lot of aeration means a lot of dissolved nitrogen and very little dissolved oxygen. A lot of aeration with millions of micro-fine air bubbles does not ensure minimal safe dissolved oxygen saturation in your overstocked summer livewell:
See Henry’s Gas Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry’s_law
Air is not Oxygen http://oxyedge-chum.com/oxygen-is-not-air
WATER TEMPERATURE CONTROLS FISH METABOLISM, FISH METABOLISM IS LIMITED BY DISSOLVED OXYGEN – FISH PHYSIOLOGY 101
Environmental water @ 70 F exposed to air or aeration limits livewell stocking density because of the limited concentration of oxygen (21%) in fresh air at normobaric conditions.
FACT: Henry’s Gas Law – The warmer the water the less oxygen it will hold under these conditions. The greater the salinity, the less dissolved oxygen water will hold. The greater the livewell stocking density, the more oxygen is required.
SUPERCHARGING LIVE BAIT WITH PURE COMPRESSED OXYGEN http://oxyedge-chum.com/supercharge-live-baits/
Supercharging is not possible with air and mechanical aeration.
Air at normobaric conditions: 21% oxygen gas tension is only is 159 mm/hg.
This is “Supercharging” – Pure 100% oxygen at normobaric conditions gas tension is 760 mm/hg. Supercharging requires continuous exposure to an additional 601 mm/hg oxygen tension.
FACT: High DO Supersaturation in live well water causes high arterial blood supersaturation in live bait… that is how fishermen create the livewell conditions for supercharging live bait. That is why supercharged live bait are unnaturally made in livewells and bait tanks in the summer. That is why supercharged live bait is so special for the serious offshore and inshore live bait fisherman, especially in the summer. PURE OXYGEN COMBINED WITH HIGH CONCENTRATIONS OF PURE ADRENALINE CREATE AN ABNORMALLY STRONG, DURABLE BAIT FISH UNSEEN IN THE WILD.
When using Supercharged live bait – never chill your livewell water with ice. If you are fishing in 90 F water keep you livewell water temperature 90 degrees F.
All live bait fishermen know what happens to chilled (75 F) live bait in aerated livewells and bait tanks when it is hooked up and tossed into summer 90 F environmental water from where it came from minutes or a few hours ago. Your live bait becomes lethargic immediately and dies quickly on the hook in that hot water. You are fishing with dead bait then.
FACT: In the summer – The acute effects of temperature shock are much greater when your live bait or tournament fish go from cooler iced live well water back to hot environmental water with low dissolved oxygen. The temperature shock you cause from the acute change of temperature from your cool livewell to warm, summer environmental water is a killer.
Live bait fishermen know this kind of temperature shock well and experience this every summer when ice is used to induce hypothermia by chilling summer livewell water.
Happy New Year! Reading material for a cold snowy day in January 2015
Tony M