[rockytop12]

got a 400 gallon i keep gills in at home? lost about a couple of them a day and was wondering is there anything else i can do to stop this? i use one of the bucket filters i read about on here with, lava rock poly filler foam filter. the water is crystal clear. keep some salt in tank also. also change water out about every 5 days, 20 percent change or so. been checking chem in tank and sometimes nitrites are higher some days but i think it may from dead fish, i try to get them out quick as possible. is there any other additives or filters i could get to control nitrites and keep my fish living? thanks for all the help, love reading post on here and getting all kinds of new ideas

 

[Dirtdobber]

What do you feed them and how may do you have in the tank? Are the ones dieing all the same size?

 

[rockytop12]

most of the time i either feed them night crawler or gold fish flakes, most i probably every have in it at one time is 50 or so, varying sizes die one day may be large and the next small

 

[Dirtdobber]

If you have a good filter system you may need to add some type of airater. (6"-8" air stone)

 

[ramon06]

you may also want to add some shad keeper to the water, works fine for my gills, bass, crappie etc

 

[metalman]

Henry,
The short answer is no, there isn't a filter to control nitrites.
The nitrites are the result of bacteria breaking down the ammonia that comes from the fish waste.
Other bacteria then convert the nitrites into nitrates. The nitrates are removed by the water changes or by having a huge amount of vegetation.
What a lot of guys don't realize is that if you only have a few fish or no fish in the tank you have to feed the bacteria with ammonia to keep the colony large enough to be able to cope with a sudden larger number of baits.
Bait tanks are much harder to keep the bacteria balance than aquariums because we are always changing the numbers of fish.
Hope that helps...W

 

[RonSki]

While Winston is 100% right that there isn't a FILTER that can control nitrates, there ARE ways of reducing them. I've had chronic problems in the past with nitrates and fish dying. They get cloudy eyes and the ick and die. Do any of your dead fish have either? I've spent some time looking into this and found some chemical media that is SUPPOSED to help comtrol nitrates. One is Purigen and the other is ChemiPure (which I am using now). I haven't had it long enough to see if it makes a difference yet so I can't say for sure. I use the little test strips quite often, but they kinda suck and being color blind doesn't help much either. If your fish are getting cloudy eyes or ick, it most likely is from nitrates. If not, it may be from other causes. How long have they been in there? That in itself could be a factor as sometimes, they just die from stress.

 

[rockytop12]

yea most of the fish i get out that are dead have the cloudy eyes your talking about. i try to get them out as quick as possible when dead but sometime its too late if they happen to stay on bottom and i dont see them. most fish will die if they do within a few days of getting put in there. i try to keep at least 20 or so in there at all times but when i sometimes but 30 more in at one time this is when i have the most die. Metal, how can i feed bacteria? Ramon, tried to shad keeper but appears filter just makes it disappear in a day or so. Dirt, already have three air pumps with 2 six inch stones each.

 

[RonSki]

I've found that as soon as you see they're starting to get cloudy eyes, change 30-50% of the water immediately. If you catch it soon enough, before they get ick, the cloudy eye will go away. As far as bacteria goes, go to your local pet shop & get a big bottle of live bacteria, I use Stress Zyme, but there are other out there. It's moderately expensive, but not too bad. Bacteria levels will rise and fall according to the amount of ammonia (nitrites and nitrates) in the water, but not fast enough to stop the fish from dying. You need a big enough culture of bacteria to handle the waste from all the fish you plan to have in there. Meaning, you'll need to put enough ammonia in the water when you don't have any fish so that you're bacteria culture will handle the waste when you do have a bunch of fish in there. Hope I explained that good enough. You can use fish food or even straigh ammonia to "feed" your bacteria. I wish there were some way of knowing how much bacteria you have so that you'd know how many fish you could keep, but nobody makes a bacteria counter yet. Better to have too many, or at least try to...

 

[ramon06]

Just thought of something, dont know if its made for long term use or if you even have $189 to spare but you could look into Steve's Awka-Lung system. It might work for you, PM him ask him if its for long term bait use. If you dont know who im talking about its Steve who makes Monster RodHolders

 

[metalman]

Henry,
RonSki explained it pretty well. Bait tanks are a sort of ongoing science experiment although not one that should be a full time pain in the arse. It's easy to know if you are getting it right or wrong...you have live or dead bait!
It doesn't hurt to get test kits for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Ammonia and nitrites are deadly to fish, nitrates are not.... at least not in the same way. You have to have the bacteria colonies establishes so that you can put a bunch of bait in the tank and keep it for a time without the ammonia and nitrites going toxic.
As Ron said, you can feed the bacteria with ammonia. I only takes a little bit on a daily basis to keep it fed. You will have to experiment with your tank to know how much is right. This is where the test kits come in. Once you get it down you will rarely have a problem and you won't need to test all that often. Use the cheapest ammonia you can find. It needs to be unscented. The dollar store usually has some of the cheap stuff.
One thing that will help keep the tank healthy is water movement. Use a pump to keep pushing water up to the surface as that is where the majority of oxygen is absorbed. Air stones and bubblers are OK but good water movement makes them unnecessary.
If you use tap water to fill your tank be sure to use tap water conditioner (available from the pet store) which will neutralize the chemicals that the water company puts in it. If you have a complete disaster and have to drain the tank but you need to put some bait in it before the bacteria is re-established you can use stuff called Amquel Plus. It can be a really handy if you are in a bind.
Don't let all this stuff baffle you; it's not as complicated as it might sound. Once you get it dialed in you should be fine...W

 

[rockytop12]

i done a little checking on ph of my tank and it is a little low, this may be one problem. i will try to get by and get some ammonia to try and feed and see what it takes to get it up to about 7 or 7.5, may look at buying some of them other chemicals yall have suggested also to try to do this. guess just be a trial and error until i can get it right. hate losing bait when i go catch it sure would be nice to have it when i'm ready to go. i've got my pump pumping from bottom to my bucket filter and i think its getting a lot of oxygen that way. what do you think water changes will do to my levels of chemicals in my tank should ijust keep adding more each time i change? thanks

 

[RonSki]

Henry, Bacteria levels will have absolutely nothing to do with your ph levels. Unless the ph is REALLY out of whack, I doubt that has anything to do with your fish dying. I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you. What do you have in your filter for the bacteria to colonize on? They have to have something or you'll never get a good population of bacteria. This is what those ceramic rings are used for in aquariums. I use cut up pieces of a commercial floor scrubbing pad, do a search for Skippy Filter if you want to see what I'm talking about. You really only need to worry about the ammonia levels. Bacteria turn the ammonia and nitrates into nitrites, Nitrates will not evaporate or break down, they continue to accumulate. This is why you have to change the water. Every time you change the water you will have to dechlorinate the water. Chlorine will kill your fish too if the levels are high enough. That's all you need for chemicals in the water, the rest is your bacteria.
In a perfect world it goes like this: Fish produce waste which decomposes and turns into ammonia and nitrates. The bacteria turn the toxic nitrates and ammonia into nitrites, which aren't as toxic. Ideally, a product like ChemiPure or Purigen (they're classified as Nitrate sponges) absorbs the nitrates that your bacterial colony can't consume. If you have a big enough bacterial colony, they will consume ALL of the ammonia and nitrates and you'll have healthy fish and won't need the ChemiPure.
It all starts and ends with ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites. All the other stuff is fairly harmless to the fish (except for drastic water temperature changes). Make sure you have some kind of media in your filter to hold the bacteria and get some actual live bacterial additive to help speed the process along. That's it! Once you get the biological process going your fish will live longer and be healthier and you'll be alot happier! It's not as complicated as it sounds, really.

 

[playin4funami]

There is a product called AMMO CHIPS that can absorb ammonia till it is full, it is some kind of clay based chips about the size of aquarium gravel,it does work,it is expensive,like 8 to 9 bucks a carton at the aquarium shop. The good news is that it can be reused like charcoal filter media can, it needs taken out rinsed and dried them it is good to go again, the bad is that in a tank like yours your going to have to come up with something to keep it in so it can be re-collected, maybe a bag or something and then drop it in the tank. I have used it with very good results in keeping ammonia level down in aquariums for a longer period of time. might be something to look into and try, I would get a couple bags worth and when you test and see ammonia levels spike change out the bags so you have one working while the other is being dried and restored.

If this is a bait tank only and you are not trying to raise these fish, do not feed them! it only creates more waste and nasties in the water, in the wild fish can go up to a year without food, and a few months before they are used as bait is not going to hurt them a bit. food=waste=bad water!

 

[Flatline]

I posted an article a little while ago that explains the basics of what everyone is talking about. If you PM me ill send it to you.

So far in this thread, the conversation is excellent and the posters really know their stuff. I'll just add my 2 cents.

If you have some bad ju ju in your tank, way better to replace water than add more and more things into the water which gets expensive and puts more and more stress on the fish due to the principle of osmosis. Which very loosely defined=water will flow from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration. If you are adding more and more other things into the water, like salt and chemicals and whatever else, there will be more pressure on the fish to deal with the change in the balance of power the water molecules are putting on them. It it gets bad enough, the fish will stress out quickly and fall victim more easily to the various terminal illnesses.

The one thing that can really help out any problem in any setting is water changes with dechlorinated water. It also helps to keep the fish in water that has similar hardness.

For example if you filled up your tank with tap water and the fish are used to the hardness of your water, doing a large water change with distilled water could stress your fish. The fastest way to turn a tank from super lethal to livable is a LARGE water change (60% is the most I would ever go at a time). Do the changes often at first. If you want to change out all the water in your tank, the smaller amount you remove at a time the longer it takes to replace the water. If you take out say 20% of the water in a change every two days, it will take you 20 days to remove 90% of the bad water.

Here is a little graph I made discussing this point.

In a 400 gallon system large water changes can be a pain. In my experience, they really are a better cure than trying to diagnose a specific water quality issue and then adding all kinds of treatments to your water to counteract the bad stuff in there. I used to do this and I would misdiagnose things and make the problems worse.

When you do water changes please, for the love of Pete, do not clean your filters out with chlorinated water or do anything to the living bacteria colonies that will reduce their numbers. Scrubbing the crap out of the sides/bottom of your tank or letting the tank dry out or forgetting to feed the system while there are no fish in it are a few surefire ways to set yourself up for heartache. You are going to need healthy bacteria to keep healthy bait.

Oh, I forgot, on the feeding topic. Feeding the fish any more often than every 3 days is a no no with wild fish and even store bought fish only need it every 2 or so if that.

 

[bobs bait]

well shad keeper is 90 percent salt i sell bait used to used now do not need to have a good air bubbler if you feed them alot part of the proble is their wast but i have had trouble keeping brim because if one gets in a shad tank he will knock the eyes out of the others took me a while to figure out why i was losing fish but found out the bream will do that robert

 

[Dirtdobber]

My bait doesn't stay in there long enough to have to feed them. I use air stones and have a 2 gal filter that I use two pumps to pump the water. I have one in each end of the tank with the filter in the center. I also put crawdads in my tanks with the perch and chubs. I don't put any thing but bullhead in the other tank. I have 15 gal cans that I keep water in and use it to change the water in the tanks. I try to keep about 30 perch and chubs and the same amount of bulheads.
I really don't worry to much if I lose bait, I'm lucky enough to have ponds and a creek close to get bait out of.

 

[rockytop12]

may try to drop back to changing out water every three days or so and see how that works. i'll see how it goes this week because every evening when i get off work i'm gone go catch bait and stock up for weekend. got to get it right eventually, i think my bucket filter should have enough different media that bacteria has plenty of places to grow, got a lava rock foam and poly.

 

[rockytop12]

ordered a thing of the chemipure i'm gone try that and see if it works. losing a few pieces of bait each day here lately though, dont know if it has started working or not. had about 30 pieces in tank and took about 20 out to fish with and when i got back i probably put 30 back in there being that i got some more while fishing. some have died, i dont know if i need to start introducting just 10 or so at the time or what. that will make it difficult sometimes and defeat the purpose because might as well just keep them in the boat tank. going to get it right one day hopefully. just giving an update to everyone.

 

[horseshadow]

may try to drop back to changing out water every three days or so and see how that works. i'll see how it goes this week because every evening when i get off work i'm gone go catch bait and stock up for weekend. got to get it right eventually, i think my bucket filter should have enough different media that bacteria has plenty of places to grow, got a lava rock foam and poly.

drop some activated charcoal like what has been mentioned above in your bucket filter.