Live Bait Tank

[Wantingaboat]

Hi All,

Hope you had a good weekend. I have recently built a live bait tank out of an esky and tested it out on Saturday night. Works pretty well but one issue i have is that i caught a couple of squid and then went over to Balmoral and got a few yakkas. I put them in the same esky and the squid didnt like it one bit. The squirted sackfulls of ink constantly at the single yakka i put in there. Has anyone any ideas how this could be overcome? I guess some kind of divider would work but the issue with that is that the water inlet is on one side thus the water wouldnt circulate in both sides. Does anyone just wack the squid/baitfish in the same spot and not worry about it. I am also worried that the yakkas might eat the squid. As squid as most people probably realise are hard work to raise sometimes i dont want to be feeding my bait. Cheers for any help. Mike.

[mr magoo]

i wouldnt worry about the yakas eating your squid it is more likely that the squid will bite the yaka,it has happened to mates of mine,

if your keen on the divider put a heap of small holes in it so the water circulates and just wedge it in there tempory and see if it does the job

maybe velcro in a bit of 12mm ply ,if it works ,get some thick plastic cut and velcro that in ,so you can use it when you need it and remove it when you only have squid or fish

just a thought

cheers arman

[andrew399]

Yeah i dont think you will have a problem with the yakkas eating the squid, you may occasionally get an arrow squid kill a yakka though. And dont worry too much about the squid blowing there ink in the tank, as long as you have fresh water coming in every now and then it should not be a problem...

[ko76]

Yeah, the ink isnt a problem as long as youve got fresh sea water pumping through, it might take a while but it will clear up in the tank. Also as the ink gets purged out with the excess water it makes a great burley!!

Same as the other posts.....Ive never had a yakka attack the squid but I know that a squid will happily eat a yakka.

Cheers,

Ken

[g.t.]

Hi Mike. I too have a esky-based live bait tank. Mine is a 40 litre Willow which has a hatch built into the lid. It works quite well. I'm planning on making an addition to it which you may be interested in...

The addition involves making a divider to keep my bait types separate. My plan is to make the divider from alloy flyscreen frame, the same size as the internal cross section of the esky. To hold it in place, I'm planning on making a slot out of 4 sections of right angle bracketing, glued vertically inside the esky as in the image below....

The flyscreen will allow a good flow of water between sections, but should keep fighting species apart. As they say, "good fences make good neighbours".

[Wantingaboat]

GT thats exactly the set up that i think will work. I may make it slightly bigger on one side as yakkas prob need more room to swim around. Cheers for your help guys/girls.

[netic]

i think you will find it is in fact the complete opposite.

yakkas can survive in a puddle of water for hours whereas squid on the other hand will die almost instantly.

do the smaller / bigger thing if you want but throw the yakkas in the smaller compartment but remember that if one day you want to throw some larger slimies in that you may struggle if the tank isnt huge already (perhaps a removable seperator would be the go?).

also id suggest putting the "yakka" section of the tank on the same side that the water exit/overflow is on as squid of any size have a habit of attempting break out through these holes no matter the size which almost always guarantees death.

Chris

100% Agree