Bait dying can come from a couple places:
1) Flow rate too low or too high
2) Shitty bait
3) Overcrowded bait tank. No matter how dialed it is, there's a limit to how much you can put
4) Having the bait tank in a rougher spot on the boat and pounding hard, causing the bait to get beat up
5) Shitty bait tank design (ie corners or stuff sticking out for bait to run into ,shitty water distribution, etc)
From the photos, your tank is either:
1) Missing baffles
Is that black spout on the inside of the tank in the photo your inlet? Usually there's a vertical plate that goes from the bottom to top covering the outlet to distribute water going in.
2) Plumbed wrong. Are there baffles on the edge of the inside of the tank that we can't see in the photo? If so, you have your water inlet plumbed into the end of day drain instead of the baffled inlet. Swap the two and you're already 90% on the road to recovery.
Make sure it's plumbed right, then get the flow right then figure out how much bait you can hold.
200gph seems low. I run a 500gph on a smaller tank and there's probably not as much height to pump on mine. I have a ball valve to get the flow rate right.
I have the same style but smaller tank. The manufacturer instructions on my tank say to adjust the flow so it takes about 7 minutes to fill the tank. I would size up your pump and use a ball valve to get the flow in that ballpark.
To give you an idea of what you can do with a dialed tank, I can hold a solid half scoop of sardines in a 14 gallon tank and keep them healthy all day in a small boat that runs hard. My body is wrecked at the end of the day, but the bait is still perky.
Fix the plumbing and get the flow right and you should be golden.
1) Flow rate too low or too high
2) Shitty bait
3) Overcrowded bait tank. No matter how dialed it is, there's a limit to how much you can put
4) Having the bait tank in a rougher spot on the boat and pounding hard, causing the bait to get beat up
5) Shitty bait tank design (ie corners or stuff sticking out for bait to run into ,shitty water distribution, etc)
From the photos, your tank is either:
1) Missing baffles
Is that black spout on the inside of the tank in the photo your inlet? Usually there's a vertical plate that goes from the bottom to top covering the outlet to distribute water going in.
2) Plumbed wrong. Are there baffles on the edge of the inside of the tank that we can't see in the photo? If so, you have your water inlet plumbed into the end of day drain instead of the baffled inlet. Swap the two and you're already 90% on the road to recovery.
Make sure it's plumbed right, then get the flow right then figure out how much bait you can hold.
200gph seems low. I run a 500gph on a smaller tank and there's probably not as much height to pump on mine. I have a ball valve to get the flow rate right.
I have the same style but smaller tank. The manufacturer instructions on my tank say to adjust the flow so it takes about 7 minutes to fill the tank. I would size up your pump and use a ball valve to get the flow in that ballpark.
To give you an idea of what you can do with a dialed tank, I can hold a solid half scoop of sardines in a 14 gallon tank and keep them healthy all day in a small boat that runs hard. My body is wrecked at the end of the day, but the bait is still perky.
Fix the plumbing and get the flow right and you should be golden.