Using salt to condition bait tank water - osmoregulation

[Benton B]

How many fishermen on this forum use salt in some form (electrolytes) to aid and regulate osmoregulation or bait fish and live crappie electrolyte balance during livewell transports all day?

Extreme stress from traumatic capture, hours of captivity and transport disrupts normal osmoregulation for any wild captured fish. This stress and osmoregulation disruption is a non-issue for wild fish normally cursing in their no stress steady state environment in lakes, rivers and oceans.

Fresh water fish drink copious volumes of water and retain the little bit of salt available in that water. The also produce tremendous volumes of urine. Saltwater fish also drink tremendous volumes of water too, they excrete large amounts of salt through specialized glands. Two completely different physiological adaptations to achieve the same goal – normal steady state osmoregulation.

The difference in the cost of a popular packaged bait saver chemical with electrolytes and salt is dramatic. 50 lbs. of salt cost about $5.

16 oz G Juice - $12.21 vs. 16 oz salt - $0.10. Multiply that out over 1 fishing year, 5 fishing years, 10 fishing years… get the picture?

[NIMROD]

I know commercial fish farmers use salt to toughen bait in tanks when it is brought in from ponds .

[arkansasbowhunter]

I use one cup to 50 gallons and works fine. I prefer the pool salt as stock salt has a lot other mineral in it that settles in tank bottom

[NIMROD]

Plain stock salt should be nothing but salt except maybe a caking preventative .

[CrappiePappy]

Found this on a Striper forum, about using "salt" to keep Shad fresh & lively :

Adding salt to the water will help by hardening the scales on the shad.
Don't go crazy with it. Add about a cup to 25 to 30 gallons. I've been buying water softener salt in 50# bags from a farmers co-op, its cheap.
Make sure the salt is not ionized and does not contains an anti caking chemical.
Natural sea salt is the best.


(disclaimer : I'm not promoting its use, just throwing it out there for further review & discussion)

[Benton B]

Found this on a Striper forum, about using "salt" to keep Shad fresh & lively :

Adding salt to the water will help by hardening the scales on the shad.
(disclaimer : I'm not promoting its use, just throwing it out there for further review & discussion)

Further Review…

Artificially hardening live freshwater bait with salt (NaCL electrolyte)… so what do fisherman do to live bait and tournament gamefish that causes that bait and fish to get “soft?” “Soft baits” and “soft tournament fish” do not happen until a fisherman gets involved. Certainly no disrespect for any fishermen, but the fisherman causes this problem. It’s also the fisherman responsibility to correct this problem if he/she wants to correct the problem he caused.

After a little Google research, let’s begin here:

Osmoregulation in fish BBC - Higher Bitesize Biology - Maintaining water balance : Revision, Page2

Some fishermen add supplemental electrolytes (salt} to livewells to restore electrolyte balance back to normal in highly stressed freshwater bait fish and tournament game fish. Sustained high stress in unnatural, not normal. Doctor’s always hook-up IV’s for ER patient that need electrolytes ASAP. IV’s with electrolytes (salt) are common routine medical practice used in hospitals.

When freshwater fish are captured, confined, compacted in small livewells (as compared to millions of gallons of environmental lake or river water), then transported in livewells having low oxygen levels in the summer, those hostile adverse conditions produce profound sustained stress and serious loss of electrolytes.

The fresh water fish physiological response to extreme stress and electrolyte imbalance is always excessive mucus (slime) production. The fisherman sees excessive slime and lost scales in the livewell. Foam on the livewell water surface, causes by excess mucus (pure protein) production. This indicates a serious livewell water quality problem, extreme fish stress that needs correcting immediately by the fisherman.

Many fishermen do not like to see or look at slime, brown foam on the surface and nasty livewell water. Many fishermen often chose not fix the poor water quality and prefer hide the foam problems using livewell antifoaming agents (detergents) or coffee creamer that make the foam disappear… Out-of-sight—out-of-mind is their solution to foam and poor livewell water quality. Just make it vanish so I don’t have to look at it.

It’s easier to hid bad water quality problems than to fix bad water quality problems in livewells and bait tanks. The bait always suffers from bad water quality. The brand of bait tank or livewell will not fix bad water quality. Filters will filter out some of the big chunks of feces, scale and vomit. Just so we are all on the same page:

This is a “Livewell.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livewell Sustained minimal safe water quality is a Livewell/bait tank requirement. Bad water quality is not an option.

Excessive mucus production under the scales pushes the scales away from the skin, this condition is not normal. Scales flake of easily when pushed away from the skin too far. This physical injury causes more stress and presents great opportunity for bacterial infections to begin. Thing’s just get worse from there.

When fishermen add supplemental electrolyte (salt) to the livewell to correct electrolyte imbalance, the physiological stress is reduced, mucus production is reduced and scales flatten down on the skin back to normal. Fishermen called this “hardening the bait with salt.” Fishery biologist and fish physiologist call this “correcting an electrolyte imbalance by adding supplemental electrolytes (salt) to livewell water.” That’s like a doctor using an IV to administering electrolytes to correct an electrolyte imbalance for people.

Actually, there are many great reasons to always add salt (NaCl) to livewell water for fresh water bait fish and mature freshwater tournament fish.

Saltwater bait fish don’t need additional supplemental salt, they get plenty salt in livewells containing environmental saltwater.

I believe that CrappiePappy knows best and Pappy is absolutely right in my opinion… 50 lbs. of cattle salt at any feed store or Farmers Co-Op is cheap, cheap, cheap compared to little bottles of popular “super bait saver” products.

If you cause an osmoregulation problem for your live bait or tournament gamefish, it’s easy to correct the problem you have caused… just add salt to your livewell water, nothing to it.

[Tracker123]

Great information, thanks.

[sinkermaker]

way over my head. I use salt in my bait tank to help herring but never use it in minnow tank. Seems to help

[algenco]

I was a Striper guide for over 20 yrs, as the above article stated it's better (maybe harder) to maintain water quality than to use chems to cover mistakes
I always felt I caught bigger fish and more of them when I didn't use chemicals
Don't crowd bait, for every 10 deg drop in water temp oxygen holding capability goes up 10 fold.
70 deg water holds 10x as much O2 as 80 deg, 60 deg holds 10x as much as 60
watch water temps and quality closely

[HOODLUM]

I know this is an old thread,
Thank you Benton....This thread was super informative!
Going out to net some Shad in the morning