Cleaning Livewells

[Bill Hamilton]

OK - I haven't used my livewells in over 5 years and just ran them the other day. They have a smell and coating that I wonder how to get rid of. I don't want to use any type of soap or cleaner since I plan to put fish in them next week during a TX (using my boat this time). Any suggestions on how to clean them well but not jeopardize killing any fish I put in the livewell next week?

 

[TOMMY RICH]

I use a little Simple Green a plastic scrubber then wipe it out with vinegar.

 

[Bill McElroy]

After you clean-em with simple green..................pour some vanilla extract on a damp cloth and wipe it around inside really good...............smells great!!

 

[Larry Harp]

I would think that a good scrubbing and rinse out with baking soda would work. I remember from back in the day when I kept aquariums to keep anything resembling soap or detergent away from fish. It's almost impossible to rinse out completely. However, chlorine bleach will clean and disinfect and is easy to rinse away. It's seems like all the bleach now has perfumes in them and I'm not sure how that would effect things.

 

[Jim B]

Ive always used vinegar to clean mine. I get myself one of those big 1.5 gallon bottles at bj's and pur it in along with some water and scrub it. Then rince it out really well. the vinegar works very well and really knocks down the funky spell that the wells can get.



Ive never tried simple green mainly because im afraid of what any soap residue may do to the fish.

 

[Marty Klein]

Mkae sure you use hot water [at least the hottest you can stand] and there should be MORE water than vinegar. Rinse thoroughly.

 

[fatrap]

Makes me hungry for a salad.

fatap

 

[Mike Tosello]

I once had a few fish die in my livewell during a BFL tournament. The tournament director pulled me aside after the weigh-in and asked what was up.... At the time I had no idea, but explained to him that we did everything we could do that day to try and keep them alive. We came to the conclusion that there must have something toxic in the livewell system.

He told me to fill a 5 gallon bucket with hot water and to dump in rock salt and let it disolve (about a gallon). Pour that into the system and scrub the livewells real good and run it thru the pumps and hoses. And dont forget your pump out lines too.

I never had another fish die since, I repeated the whole process twice.



Mike

 

[Scott Hammer TOXIC]

Simple green, scrub and a good flush. I cycle a lot of fish through mine!!



TOXIC

 

[Dan Sullivan]

Simple green, scrub and a good flush.

That's what I do

 

[Mini]

I dont clean mine with anything other than lake water.....I did once and the next tourney spent all day trying to revive fish.



I will fluch mine on constant fill on practice days to dilute anything that maybe in there. I do however remove all the shad, minnow, perch and crayfish parts that are in there by hand or wet vac at the car wash.



Mine dont smell too bad....lol



Mini

 

[Scott Hammer TOXIC]

That's what you think....



TOXIC

 

[Kraig Clement]

I would not put anything but hot water.... why take a chance...

 

[Jim B]

Mine dont smell too bad....lol

Dude you got to put some fish in them, then they will smell bad. LOL



I actually had mine smelling really bad on my 882 a few years back. I was the "dump boat" for my club because NH requires you to take the fish out to deep water to release them. My friend Gino threw some of the rejuvinade in there and i think he may have put in a little too much. The water was so blue i couldt see anything. Needless to say i missed one and didnt realise it until like 4 days later( it was like

August so it was hot too).... I could smell that thing from like 50 feet away, it was horrible. i had to basically soak the wells in a 50/50 vinegar water mix for like 4 days to get rid of the smell. When i went into bj's and got like 20 gallons of vinegar the people in there gave me strange looks.

 

[Mark Lundgren]

I had to clean mine because gasoline had gotten in them (long story short, dont use your livewells to hold portable gas containers). I scrubbed them with simple green a few times, rinsed well with hot water and then scrubbed them again with salt. I remembered using salt to clean my aquariums in years past so I thought that would do the trick. Just to be on the safe side the next few times I went out to practice I ran the livewells continuosly to give them a few extra rinses. Never lost a fish out of those livewells.....