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Tek Tanks


Maverick Martin
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Tek Tanks are suppliers of live bait aerators and bait wells, much talked about items in our forum have decided to come onboard and sponsor our site smile.gif

 

If you decide to buy one of their products please let em know where you heard of them either by mentioning the club or ordering from their site online

 

Martin

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Bugger, Bugger, Bugger, I wish these guys had come on board before the weekend past!! Looking at their range of DIY gear, it seems that all of their push fit fittings are the same as the ones I have used on my bodged job!! I must admit, they are cheaper, but we all know B & Q charge like wounded Elephants!!!!!!

 

Great addition to the site, welcome Tek Tanks.

 

Rich, miffed!!!!

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I use a Tek Tank livewell and it is very good.

Got to rate the well and pump, but they are pricey, maybe members will get a discount?

 

The only other thing I am not completely pleased with is that whilst the aerator diffuses huge amounts of oxygen into the water, the actual water doesn't circlate or get refreshed with cool new water so it doesn't take a long time for the fish to go belly up.

 

Hopefully they may read this (as the product is generally excellent) and one of their boffins can offer some advice.

 

I know the answer is to chuck away the diffuser and simply pump water around with the deck wash, but then I may as well have used an old bucket instead.

 

Tom

Edited by TomBettle
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Tom, I have just been introduced to the Tek-Tank system and have spoken to their 'boffin' and will be producing a short report for those who may be interested. As far as the warm water is concerned, the answer appears to be to remove a bucket of water from the tank now and again and replace it with fresh from the sea. Alternatively, they have the kit to plumb this system in, but, obviously at an additional price. My initial contact with the company was to try and find an alternative to the DIY (Adam) system at a price that is not exorbitant. This seems to fit the bill and the company are extremely helpful and their specialist extremely approachable. I will also be speaking to them about a discount for block purchase if enough are interested. Let me know what the take-up might be.

 

Terry B.

Edited by plaicemat
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Tom, I have just been introduced to the Tek-Tank system and have spoken to their 'boffin' and will be producing a short report for those who may be interested. As far as the warm water is concerned, the answer appears to be to remove a bucket of water from the tank now and again and replace it with fresh from the sea. Alternatively, they have the kit to plumb this system in, but, obviously at an additional price. My initial contact with the company was to try and find an alternative to the DIY (Adam) system at a price that is not exorbitant. This seems to fit the bill and the company are extremely helpful and their specialist extremely approachable. I will also be speaking to them about a discount for block purchase if enough are interested. Let me know what the take-up might be.

 

Terry B.

Thanks Terry

 

The system is very good and on the whole I can only praise it, but the price is very high too for what is essentially a nice posh big bucket, a bilge pump with a sponge round it and still the need to manually chage over the water unless you pay even more.....

 

I love my tek-tank, but cuold do with a better water exchange system that is easy for my rather non engineering brain to fathom out.

My thoughts on purchase were that the diffuser would keep the bait alive as well as any water exchange, but it doesn't quite hack it.

If I was to put a water exchange system in place then the diffuser would be obselete?

 

Do you have the boffin's name and number at Tek Tanks as my criticism is constructive (like I keep saying, good but pricey) or maybe ask them to come and join the thread so we can all get their views.....?

 

Tom

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Hopefully, this is what will happen in a short while. To answer your point about the cost of the bucket, what I have done is compromised by using their pump system and combining it with one of Adam's 60ltr tubs, which only cost around

Edited by plaicemat
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Exactly my point Adam.

 

The tek tank system just oxygenates the existing water which would be fine except that we tend to live bait most during the Summer when the water in that nice big bucket gets warm and everything dies anyway.

 

The water in the bucket needs constant changing to keep the bait alive, in which case a standard pump system should be much better....?

 

Also, becuase the bucket has no "flow" the fish can't swin naturally against the current in that anti clockwise direction that we know they like to.

 

Great system, but needs some work to get a my 100% vote.

 

Tom

Edited by TomBettle
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The information I have from Florida (where it also gets pretty warm) is that the fish die from a lack of oxygen (many fish competing for a finite supply) and not temperature alone. If the water is oxygenated and the temperature is ignored, yes, they will die eventually but nowhere near as quickly as with no added oxygen. This is simply horses for courses. I'm not lauding this as the best sytem above others, I simply offer it as an alternative which seems to be simple to install and use. I don't personally consider it to be a hardship to change a bucket full of water every now and again, perhaps this is more difficult on a bigger boat. In a perfect world, everything is perfect but for me, the lack of drilling and machinery to go wrong outweighs the downsides. As I said, horses for courses; if others are happy with their system, it doesn't make this one wrong for someone else.

 

Terry B.

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Hi Terry

 

I have used the system for a little over a year now and changing a bucket of water doesn't do the trick. Sandeels and Mackerel both like to have a flow of water and whilst they last a couple of hours with the diffuser alone, they rarely last much longer. If I was doing it again I would do it the DIY method and use a deckwash or bilge pump to simply circulate a fresh supply of water round the tank and keeping the bait alive and well all day long.

 

As soon as I can get round to it I will be removing the diffuser and throwing it over the side (into a bin of course) and simply fitting a through bucket hozelock connector with a right angle on the inside and a few small (or one larger with mesh over it) holes for the excess water to drain out.

 

The plus side is that my bucket looks much prettier than an old 10 gallon drum rolleyes.gif , just a bit more expensive ohmy.gif

 

Trying not to be negative as the idea is good, but it barely works for more than a couple of hours.

 

Tom

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the one i have made with the tek tank pump in a barrel works well, the addition i made was to fit a plastic ball valve at the top and open it slightly this way the level is getting pumped down slowly whilst the pump is still airating and then add an extra bucket of water when the level gets lower.

also good at the end of the day to pump the tank dry.(using a simple cap on the outlet so that water is only pumped through the top valve)

unable to post photos on here but if anybody wants one i can e mail direct.

 

hope this helps

 

andy

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Tom, you can probably help me out here. My brother-in-law in the States tells me that he has a digital temp guage on his tank and changes some of the water before it gets to the critical temperature. Also, if the fish are looking a bit jaded, he opens the valve up and floods the chamber with oxygen, making the water go cloudy with the bubbles. Have you tried this and does it work? He reckons it keeps fish going most of the day. I don't know how big his tank is, however.

 

Terry B.

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Hi Terry

 

Yep it certainly goes cloudy with bubbles if you flood the tank with oxygen, but simply changing the water with a bucket doesn't seem to work very well.

 

Yes it certainly helps, but I have found that even with fresh water going in regularly via a bucket and with a mass of oxygen they seem to roll over much quicker than a standard tank with a regular flow of pumped replacement water.

 

I am sure it is the flow of water rather than masses of oxygen and colling the water that is the answer.

 

Most the boats I have been on that have replacement water being pumped in to a circular tank seem to keep the bait alive all day with no problems (so long as the water circulates in a clockwise direction which means the fish swim into the current facing anti clockwise.

 

Maybe mackerel and sandeel are more susceptible to this than American live baits like ballyhoo etc?

 

Tom

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I seem to recall reading somewhere that stale seawater will suffocate fish even when it's oxygenated because small organisims (algae maybe?) dies when temperature reaches certain level, and it's these things which kill the fish. Any thoughts?

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Why waste time dipping buckets in the sea?? Simply include a good circulation of fresh sea water from a decent GPM bilge and the problem is surely solved...........waits for the boffin from TekTanks to shoot me down here. The whole point of a bait tank is to give the bait fish a similar environment to where they have come from, so just circulate sea water at a sufficient rate to A) Keep the tank water at the same temp as the sea, cool.gif Keep the tank at a similar aeration content as the sea, if you see the fish flagging, and you get good signs, as the do surface and gasp, simply aerate if need be.

 

Rich

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Rich

 

Exactly as I have been trying to point out about the jolly nice Tek Tank's (which I happen to own one of) failing.

 

I was trying to be very polite as the nice chaps from there have spent a lot of money with the club.

 

As a user, I know where it fails, but was trying to be a bit diplomatic.

 

Tom

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