Temperature Plus Oxygen Meter

Printable View

11-15-2004, 05:25 AM
duane

Temperature Plus Oxygen Meter

Does anyone use a "Temperature Plus Oxygen Meter"? Are they useful in finding and catching crappie?
11-15-2004, 10:21 AM
Moose1am

I have one but it's broke and does not work LOL

I have a YSI dissolved oxygen meter with a 25 ft long cord. I need to get the dissolved oxygen probe replaced. It does not work for some reason. I have a bad thermister which went bad when the probe developed a crack in the plastic and some water got inside the probe and shorted out the thermister. But the temperaature sensor on the probe still works fine. So I use it to measure the water temperature from the surface down to 25 ft. If the lake stratifies above 25 ft then it would help to find fish which tend to stay above the summer thermoclines. But it's a lot of work to drag it out in the boat and takes up room in the boat. So I don't use it that much these days.

You can find the thermocline with the depht finder and that may tell you as much or more information as to where the fish are suspended. Suspended fish are harder to catch sometimes than fish that are right on the drop off and actively chasing bait fish or fish that are up on the top of the shelf chasing bait fish and feeding.

To find areas of good dissolved oxygen content just fish around the submergent vegetation in the shallower waters. Water less than 10 deep.

I may get a new YSI Dissolved Oxygen Probe someday and then get the 50ft long cable so that I can use it more effectivley at Patoka lake.

I would say that unless you like to fool around with this type of stuff that it's more trouble than it's worth. I enjoy studing the water as I took some college classes in Limnology and Ichthyology but they didn't teach me anything about actually going fishing for crappie. LOL The knowledge is great to have but other things come into play in finding out where the crappie are located and getting them to bite. Thinks like knowing the lakes bottom contours and where the creek channels are river beds are located and where the brush piles are located are more important than knowing the temperature profile of a lake and the amount of dissolved oxygen down at 15ft below the surface.

And the good devices that really are accurate and that work are very expensive. Costing over a thousand dollars to buy new.

The ones that sell for under 200 bucks may not be as accurate as the scientific ones. But then again they may work just fine. Sometimes you pay out the ying yang for something that has scientific or medican use simply because they have a captured market with little or no competion.

The probe that I use had a gold plating for the cathode and a sliver plated metal structure for the anode and as oxygen passes though a semipermiable membrate it's consumed at the Cathode and causes a small electrical current to flow though the probe to the meter. The signal is amplified and displayed on an analog meter. The meter is calibrated from zero to 10ppm on one scale and the the other scale is zero to 20 ppm. That covers the range of dissolved oxygen in most lakes and bodies of water. A resister is switched to select the two ranges. The probes must be cared for and a new membrate and fresh KCL soln is used to help make contact between the two elements of the probe (anode and cathode) and the KCL is held inside the probe by the plastic membrane. The membrate is stetched over the end of the probe and held in place by an "O" ring. Then one has to calibrate the meter and make sure that the batteries are fully charged up. It's a lot of work to perform all this and calibate the meter. These devices are best used in a modern labatory type setting. These days they are used to perform BOD readings on water samples in a lab. But they are also used by research scientist out in the field and are portable and battery operated and fairly rugged. The new cables use a metal collar that won't crack like the old plastic collars. I plan on getting a new metal collar and then redoing the wires going into the top of the probe with a wiring repair kit that is sold by YSI. I may have it repaired next summer and play around with it more and see if it helps my fishing any.

In the small lakes that I fish I pretty well know where to find the fish year round and will then take some dissolved oxygen readings at the depths where I catch my fish. Not sure if that will get done but it's on the list of things to do in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by duane

Does anyone use a "Temperature Plus Oxygen Meter"? Are they useful in finding and catching crappie?
11-15-2004, 10:28 AM
duane

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moose1am

I have a YSI dissolved oxygen meter with a 25 ft long cord. I need to get the dissolved oxygen probe replaced. It does not work for some reason. I have a bad thermister which went bad when the probe developed a crack in the plastic and some water got inside the probe and shorted out the thermister. But the temperaature sensor on the probe still works fine. So I use it to measure the water temperature from the surface down to 25 ft. If the lake stratifies above 25 ft then it would help to find fish which tend to stay above the summer thermoclines. But it's a lot of work to drag it out in the boat and takes up room in the boat. So I don't use it that much these days.

You can find the thermocline with the depht finder and that may tell you as much or more information as to where the fish are suspended. Suspended fish are harder to catch sometimes than fish that are right on the drop off and actively chasing bait fish or fish that are up on the top of the shelf chasing bait fish and feeding.

To find areas of good dissolved oxygen content just fish around the submergent vegetation in the shallower waters. Water less than 10 deep.

I may get a new YSI Dissolved Oxygen Probe someday and then get the 50ft long cable so that I can use it more effectivley at Patoka lake.

I would say that unless you like to fool around with this type of stuff that it's more trouble than it's worth. I enjoy studing the water as I took some college classes in Limnology and Ichthyology but they didn't teach me anything about actually going fishing for crappie. LOL The knowledge is great to have but other things come into play in finding out where the crappie are located and getting them to bite. Thinks like knowing the lakes bottom contours and where the creek channels are river beds are located and where the brush piles are located are more important than knowing the temperature profile of a lake and the amount of dissolved oxygen down at 15ft below the surface.

And the good devices that really are accurate and that work are very expensive. Costing over a thousand dollars to buy new.

The ones that sell for under 200 bucks may not be as accurate as the scientific ones. But then again they may work just fine. Sometimes you pay out the ying yang for something that has scientific or medican use simply because they have a captured market with little or no competion.

The probe that I use had a gold plating for the cathode and a sliver plated metal structure for the anode and as oxygen passes though a semipermiable membrate it's consumed at the Cathode and causes a small electrical current to flow though the probe to the meter. The signal is amplified and displayed on an analog meter. The meter is calibrated from zero to 10ppm on one scale and the the other scale is zero to 20 ppm. That covers the range of dissolved oxygen in most lakes and bodies of water. A resister is switched to select the two ranges. The probes must be cared for and a new membrate and fresh KCL soln is used to help make contact between the two elements of the probe (anode and cathode) and the KCL is held inside the probe by the plastic membrane. The membrate is stetched over the end of the probe and held in place by an "O" ring. Then one has to calibrate the meter and make sure that the batteries are fully charged up. It's a lot of work to perform all this and calibate the meter. These devices are best used in a modern labatory type setting. These days they are used to perform BOD readings on water samples in a lab. But they are also used by research scientist out in the field and are portable and battery operated and fairly rugged. The new cables use a metal collar that won't crack like the old plastic collars. I plan on getting a new metal collar and then redoing the wires going into the top of the probe with a wiring repair kit that is sold by YSI. I may have it repaired next summer and play around with it more and see if it helps my fishing any.

In the small lakes that I fish I pretty well know where to find the fish year round and will then take some dissolved oxygen readings at the depths where I catch my fish. Not sure if that will get done but it's on the list of things to do in the future.

Thank you, This was a good reply to my question