Guys, My friend Jake and I are doing a tri state fish journey tomorrow and I want to be able to keep the fish alive in the car until we make it back. What have some of you done to set up a "live well" in a car for transporting fish for a few hours?
Mobile Live Well...
- Thread starter 73amc
- Start date
Unless you are buying really large fish, most fish will be fine in the bag in an insulated cooler for 10-12 hours or more (a day or two if packed with oxygen). If the fish are not going to be in the heated section of the vehicle, you may need heat packs.
I've used 30g rubbermaid totes with a cycled sponge filter and battery op air pump. works great for larger fish and long trips. I like to keep them on the back seat because temps in the truck could get too hot/cold.
depends on the fish. I collected 5 3/4" to 1.25" bluegill from my dad's pond about 9:30am and had them in a 5G bucket with a home made cycled biofilter run with a battery operated air pump until I got the tank set up the next day with no problems.
Look, this problem is very simple. Just replace your back windows with thicker glass, and add a glass divider right behind the front seats separating the front and back of the car. Next, cut out the back half of the roof of the car and replace it with a glass paine. That's an easy way to do your lighting and add an extra viewing angle. Next, reroute the air conditioning vents so that one is an intake and one is a return line to your sump that you've set up in the trunk. Then route the front air conditioning vents to air hoses that go in the tank. This way, you get airation in the tank as well as being able to heat the water, all with your convenient controls up front. Seal the back area of the car. Now just fill up the back seat area of the car with water as a test fill. The first time I did this, I ran into a few problems so here are some cheap, simple fixes. my big problem was the weight sagging down the rear end of the car. So make sure before you fill you replace the shocks with something heavy duty. Next, I found that when I turned off the car that the sump didn't run without power. Here's a green way to solve that, just cut out the front half of the roof, and replace it with a solar panel that is hooked up to a large battery and wire it to the sump pump. It will supply enough electricity for the pump 24/7 whether your driving or not. There you have it! You're ready for the journey, in a monstrous way. 