Thought I could contribute something to the site. I have a tank for my eels. Was an old bait tank for killies and shiners, but my fish kept dying because of ammonia issues. I got a pond filter, which helped, but the real issue was fresh water.
I plumbed out a separate line to give instant access for the water. Set up another drain line in my basement to take the waste water out. Real pita, but I had some sump pump work I was doing there anyway, so I tied it in.
I'll set up a step-by-step for anyone else who wants to make an eel tank. Keep in mind there are many different ways to do this, so take what you want from this. I will say I have been able to keep eels alive for weeks with this setup, so I'm gonna stick with it.
The first step is to get a 55 gallon plastic tank. You can probably use something smaller, but the size I have gives me the option if I ever want to go back to keeping other bait in there, like when the bass are all gone, and I'm forced to go back to fresh water.
Then drill a 1" hole near the bottom. Take some 1" pvc, run it through the bottom, plumb the outside with a plastic shutoff. Run another short length, maybe a few inches, to a 1" rubber hose, then send that to a drain somewhere.
Seal all pvc with primer and glue. Seal the outside of where the pvc goes into the tank with epoxy and let it set.
Now set up the inside of the tank. Run another length of 1" pvc on a 45 deg diagonal towards the top of the tank. This will be your drain. You could put this in straight, but I put it on an angle in case I ever wanted to fill the tank all the way up, and drain at the same time. Drill drain holes in the pvc, lots of em.
Then put a cap on the pvc at the top end. Prime and seal. put together.
Get yourself a pond pump and filter. It's a rectangular filter with charcoal media that sits at the bottom. I broke mine one day, so I do without it.
I just use the pump (gray in the pic) as is because the eels are too big to get sucked into the opening, and they stay away from it.
Pics of the pump. The opening you see is where it sucks water through, so you would have to get the rest of the filtration setup for killies or small bait.
Pics of the drain tube, coming up on a 45 deg angle. You can see the eels in the water. I put a black rubber cap on top in case the inside of the tube ever needs to be cleaned. I didn't use primer and pvc on the inside pieces, so I can take them apart whenever needed.
Pics of the filter unit. I set mine up to be the cheapest long term. The internal filters come in 2 packs for $10. Only change them once every few months to keep the biologic bacteria in there. Otherwise, just rinse them when they get too filled with eel slime.
Filter unit from Home depot. Filter is connected to the pump with rubber hose and worm clamps.
Alternative filtration. I was thinkin about using something else for filtration, but never got around to setting up. Got this swimming pool filtration unit as a spare. Someone could set that up as well.
Hey capt, someone else asked me if I had well or town water, so here's my answer, hope that helps.
When I kept killies and shiners, they were dying because of the town water. Finally figured I had to have better filter medium for the ammonia, and change the water less. Bleach that towns put into water really does affect small bait.
Eels seem better able to adjust, but I only change out the water every 2 weeks or so. Another thing I learned to do is put salt water tablets in the tank, buy cheapest bag possible from HD, and throw a little in every few days or so.
I'm not an expert on this, but it seems to me the salt in the water has cut down on the microbial infections that you find in bait tanks. When the water temp went up in the summer, fish would die. Winter, I was able to keep more fish alive.
When I was freshwater fishing, I would buy 12 dozen shiners at a time from a wholesaler. If I was keeping that tank filled to capacity, I would have to use a more expensive filter system, like $150. That would have been my next step but I didn't want to spend the extra $$
How I did it: Eel Tank
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