Bullheads are Catchable - Get the bait tank setup!

[Shack]

I do not know, the box tell's ya

I would have to say for PH, between 6.6 and 7.4 should be good enough for bullies! As close to 7.0 as possible for chubs and suckers!

I was thinking about more on the lines of other chem's in your water. I think pet shops still will test your water for free and while you wait.

[crazyice]

Yeah, there's gotta be something else going on, I have put bullies staight from the creek into city water, and they have done fine. No chlorine additive stuff or anything. Something goofy is going on with your tanks.

[SteveD]

Well I have killed off alot of creek chubs, suckers, and bullheads this year. I have also killed every fish in my fish aquarium. So I come to the conclusion its not me, it has to be the water. I have a big stock tank 6'x2'x2', killed them off in there, I have a big 100qt cooler that I have killed them off in there. Now I am only talking a few dozen with a good bubbler. I also have a 60 gallon fish aquarium that I have killed all the "pet" fish in! I have even added the additive to the aquarium. Its getting frustrating!

Dude - You got issues!! It has to be the water. Like has been said - I've put bullies in lots of untreated water and they do fine. Based on the different kinds of fish killed and the different kind of containers they have been killed in - it has to be the water.

Are you drinking that same water? Did you say city water? If it is city water I would give a call to the local public works department and see what they can say. Maybe they could check your water for you.

Good Luck.

[Scott K]

Ya I have kept bait tanks in a different town I have lived in with no problems. This will be the first time setting up the bait tank in the town I live in now. Most of the time when going fishing we fill the bait cooler with city water from a different town and they last all night. The water from my town they will be dead in 6 hours! I will bring in a water sample and get it tested thanks!

[DTro]

That's kind of scary.

If you go to a larger pet store, they should have a test kit. I have one like is like a chemistry set. Test tubes with eyedroppers and color coded cards

My ammonia was really high at first, but have managed to get it down to about 2-3 ppm which is still pretty high.

While the pH is important, you would be more concerned with the nitrate and ammonia count I think.

Good Luck

[DTro]

Here's some info on my tank that I tested.

Keep in mind that I recently added approx 100 med size bullheads 5-6"

Also the tank has been up and running for about 1 month

Before 25% water change.

pH 7.6

Ammonia 3-4 ppm

Nitrate 5ppm

After 25% water change

pH 7.6

Ammonia 2-3 ppm

Nitrate 0 ppm

That's a quite a swing in nitrate levels, so the water changes are basically a must for me to keep that amount of bait in my tank

The test kit I am using is called a Master Test Kit made by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals. It can be found at Petco and is about $30

[Scott K]

Ok the test kit I have at home for my pool, I dont know if this tests the same stuff as needed for fish? But it is a HTH 3 way test kit. It measures chlorine, bromine, and ph. The readings I got are ph was 7.5, chlorine was 2ppm, bromine was 4ppm. I dont know if those readings mean anything, but for my pool I would need to add some treatment stuff to it

[Scott K]

Ok I brought some tap water in and got it tested. It has 6ppm ammonia out of the tap , I bought some stuff to add to it, but with 6ppm out of the tap, is that even safe to drink? What could be making it that high? Could it be a city issue?

[harvey lee]

Does Henderson treat the city water?

[Scott K]

I assumed they did? But the test revealed no chlorine and high ammonia 6ppm actually a little higher then that. I am going to call the city tomorrow and find out what I can. I tried searching on line to find what a safe limit was for drinking water. I didnt find it.

[Scott K]

Ok this is all I really found on ammonia in drinking water. It says it is not a regulated test, so they dont do it!

Quote:

Ammonia in Your Water System?

The only accurate way to determine if your water contains ammonia is to perform an ammonia analysis. We recommend that a system check its source water at each entry point for total ammonia. If ammonia is detected, additional sampling on the distribution system for free ammonia should be explored. We have detected ammonia levels of over 7 mg/L in groundwater in Minnesota. Many ground water systems in this state have ammonia levels ranging between 0.2 to 2.0 mg/L. Since ammonia is an unregulated compound, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not required a system to sample for it. Because of this, we have very little historical data on ammonia levels in ground waters in Minnesota.

[aanderud]

Wow, all I can think is that if a bullhead can't live in it, drinking it can't seem all that safe! Bullheads can live in some pretty cruddy water!

[Scott K]

Wow, all I can think is that if a bullhead can't live in it, drinking it can't seem all that safe! Bullheads can live in some pretty cruddy water!

My thoughts exactly!

[Shack]

I was going to say ammonia, because I had an issue years ago in an aquarium I ran with ammonia!

Does not sound good.

I am glad you brought this up.

[crazyice]

I finally bit the bullet on a bait set up. I used a collection of ideas from this thread, and it seems to be working just fine. My only issue is that the water pushed out on the sides a little too much for my liking, so that is the reason for the rope. But what it is, is a 45 gallon tote with wheels on one end filled with @ 35 gallons of water, a 160 gallon per hour 3 stage filter, and a dual outlet air pump with two 5 inch air stones.

[fishinJohn]

4wanderingeyes... For your health and that of your bait it might be smart to look into a reverse osmosis filtering system. I am no plumber but I was able to set one up for drinking water in my house. I had a multimeter that measured PH EC TDS and the TDS and EC read 0.0 for the filtered water. They make storage tanks for these up to 100 gallons I think.

I have about a dozen bullheadsin a five gallon pail and I change the water every day and they are doing ok with just an air stone. I use circle hooks when collecting for practice. The old water from the bucket goes into the garden. It's a pretty fun process; collect a few worms from the yard, drive a mile to a pond that only bullhead survive in, catch them easy as can be, bring 'em home to feed my plants and when I want to go cat fishing they are ready. All pretty much for free!

[Scott K]

I have since treated the bait water with 2 doses to reduce the high amount of ammonia, and put some bullheads in the water, they have survived a couple days so far. We will see how it works out. As for the drinking water, I am still looking into that side of it, as with tap water having that high of ammonia.

[crazyice]

I have my bullheads in straight tap water, without treatment, and I haven't lost one yet. Actually, I take that back, I lost one right away, but I had three that didn't look good when I put them into the tank, so I am assuming that the one that died was one of those three, but the other two obviously did just fine.

[rushing]

Bullheads are hardy and the only time I ever see them die is if you try to keep to many bullies in too small of a space and they foul the water faster than you can change it out or just are plain lazy and dont change out the water enough.

I have well water and it already smells and tastes like a lake so the bullheads feel at home. I recently had to put a cover on my tub because these bullies think they are part salmon and keep trying to jump out.

[Slowhand]

4wanderingeyes, I was reading the thread on the ammonia issue. Since we live in same city and use same tap water I can show you want I got working @ the house if you like. For our health reasons it worth looking into...I have never tested for ammonia in my bait-tank until this spring when they started selling strip tests for it at PetExpo in Mankato. I do run a pretty beefy biological filter, which eats the ammonia, and run a chiller in the loop. I very rarely lose a creek chub.

I got this from a site:

Ammonia toxicity is significantly influenced by temperature and pH. The lower the temperature and pH the more ammonia can be tolerated.

Lethal ammonia concentrations at a pH of 6.5 are 0.73 ppm, while at pH 8.5 only 0.17 ppm are considered lethal to inhabitants.

A fish tank kept at 68 degrees F can tolerate more then twice the amount of ammonia as a tank kept at 86 degrees F.

Our Ph is high in our tapwater...but I have talked to folks about adjusting high ph and against their advise I tried to balance it....its like pouring water uphill.

Anyway shoot me an email if you [email protected]

[Roscoe]

Do you guys use a glove to put those little guys on your hook when fishing? I know some people who have been poked or stung from the spines on their fins.

[DTro]

Expect to get poked by the spines.

If you want to avoid it, use gloves.

If not, then after a few hundred, you don't feel it much anymore.

[crazyice]

After what I had happen to me last year, I can't bring myself to handle one without a glove. I took a really nasty poke to the webbing between my thumb and index finger, Tyler can attest to how bad it was.

[rushing]

Flat rash, poked by bullheads, being muddy, lumpy from mosquito bites, smelling of campfire. Its all part of flathead fishin.

[SteveD]

Flat rash, poked by bullheads, being muddy, lumpy from mosquito bites, smelling of campfire. Its all part of flathead fishin.

Rushing's comment reminded me of an old John Wayne quote:

Life is tough. But it's even tougher when you're stupid.

Crazyice - Use a glove if you want, no need to prove your manhood by being stupid. I personally avoid the mud, use mosquito dope, I love flathead rash so that's OK, but I always stay upwind of the fire.