# Help making a shad tank for the boat



## Salmonid

Help making a Shad tank 
Ok folks, I need some help here, I have access to several clean white plastic 55 gallon drums ( had strawberry preserves in them) and Im planning on making some shad tanks out of them, ( circular to help them stay alive) I think I have everything worked out, will use 1" plastic hoses to pump water in from overboard and a filtered outlet to run overflow back off the boat. When I run, Ill put both hoses back inside the tank and it will self circulate at that time, then when I get where I am going, Ill put both hoses overboard and it will again circulate fresh river water back into the tank. Make sense???
My main question is how high should I cut the barrels since shad and bluegills can be quite the jumpers. Im thinking rather too tall then not tall enough, so Im thinking maybe 24 or 28", with my over flow about 16" or 18" up.

Any thoughts on this??

I know Mellon/RealRiverking will want one when I figure out how to make them. I may have some more barrels available (cheap) to anyone in SW Ohio. 

Salmonid
__________________
Have Fish, will travel!
Mark Blauvelt
Dayton, Ohio


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## Doctor

Mark,

I made one like that years ago till I bought my Shad tanks, mine was 18 inches tall with a wood lid covering the whole top, 1/2 was hinged to get to the bait, on the solid half I cut an opening and about halfway down inserted one of those plastic tupperware oblong things down into it had a bunch of holes drilled into the bottom,brought the spray bar in the back side put that batting stuff in there and used that for a filter, really worked well, most standard pumps have 3/4 inch fittings so that is the PVC piping I used, i have a picture here somewhere of the unit I copied I'll find it and post it to give you an idea,well after doing research I found the actual link that I made my tank from

http://www.catfishing.tv/Main/tips-section/TipsSection.html

Click on the baittank link, hope this helps out...........Doc


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## Salmonid

Thanks Doc, that is great information! 
Do you think getting fresh water is better then recirculating ?? If I recirculate, then I can keep the salt water in vs all fresh water, just curious which might work better to keep shad livelier, in your opinion? 

Thanks again, Salmonid


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## Doctor

If you put salt in the water and filter it well just recirculating it will do the job, gets a little rough when the temps get into the mid 80's but even with my tanks I'll have issues with them. Fresh water works well but if the water temp changes more than 10 degrees high or low they will get stressed out again.

The biggest thing with Shad is to get them to dump there bowels before you put them in the tank, the way to do that is when you net them put them in a bucket of saltwater and leave them there for 5 min. that will force them to unload into the bucket and not in your tank, your clean water will turn dark brown or black, mud from the bottom of the lake, once they are purged then you can transfer them to your tank, keep your tank water cool 60 degrees and about a cup of saltwater in the baittank, this will lock there scales down, if they breath scales it cuts there gills and they get stressed out and will die, ammonia which is what there urine has as a by product is a major killer they will get rednosed and die, if you have foam on your water that will not allow them to breath well at all, coffee creamer will remove the foam but then you need to do a water change.............Doc


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## fisherman5567

All sounds too involved for me!!! LOL


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## dinkbuster1

igloo cooler, baggies, and ice. best "bait tank" for shad, period!


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