The boat I'm working on has a factory live well in the center bench. It had one hose coming from it to the back of the boat which I took out cause of it being old, brown and cracked up. It also has what I think is the overflow, it's a T shaped pipe that goes through the bottom of the boat. Nothing else. My questions are, will this T let the water out if it gets to full or will it just keep filling up cause of the water being below where the exit is? What would I need to fix this back so that it will bring water in and flush it back out, keep fish alive? I'll get some pics of it and post them as soon as I can and show you what I'm seeing.
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Live well Questions
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thewalleyehunter
Well-known member
Have any pics, that might help figure it out.
Here's a pic of the live well. These are the only "Live well" pipes in there. Pretty sure the one in red goes to the inside of the boat under the livewell. The one in green goes to the outside of the boat, Overflow? That's all of the piping that is in it (Other than what's floating in there lol)
Iverson_4x4
Active member
I believe that you are correct. The "T" looks to be an over flow, and the upper pipe looks to be your water pump in spicket. Is the "T" below or above the water line on the boat. If it is below the water line of the boat you will need to cut the pipe and extend it up above the water line. Otherwise the livewell will just fill up and over flow into the boat.
As for the water pump in spicket, there should have been an aerator pump inline with the old plumbing you had going to the transom. When you turn on the aerator pump it would fill the livewell, and when the water starts to flow into the over flow "T" you'll turn the pump off. (Repeat to add fresh water, as long as the "T" is above the water line the water should circulate.) If it doesn't have an aerator pump I would advise adding one, and get a spray head to attach to the water pump in spicket with a hose. You can mount it horizontally or vertical. This spray head would look similar to this:
The entire system would look similar to this: (Got this from Flow-Rite website - they own this drawing)
As for a pump out, I doubt it had this option. Check to see if you can unscrew the "T" where the nut is. I have a hunch that it is set up this way as a plug. Once the boat is on the trailer you pull the "T" out to drain the livewell. So if this boat is always in water, unfortunately it will always have water in the livewell. Adding a pump out is not out of the question though, just a little more costly. This would allow you to empty the livewell while your boat is still in the water. It would require another aerator pump, a speacial pump out / recirc head from Flow-Rite, and some more plumbing. The cost is really in the pumps, all the flow-rite parts are actually pretty cheap. All in all I think it is worth it, and just ordered my parts to do this to my boat. With the two pumps, plumbing, wiring, thru-hulls, pump out / recirc head, and spray nozzle I I have approx. $150 in it. (I am also adding a automatic aerator timer... that was $55. You could use two toggle switchs and manually control them cheaper. This method should only run you about $100.)
Here is how that system is set up: (Got this from Flow-Rite website - they own this drawing)
As for the water pump in spicket, there should have been an aerator pump inline with the old plumbing you had going to the transom. When you turn on the aerator pump it would fill the livewell, and when the water starts to flow into the over flow "T" you'll turn the pump off. (Repeat to add fresh water, as long as the "T" is above the water line the water should circulate.) If it doesn't have an aerator pump I would advise adding one, and get a spray head to attach to the water pump in spicket with a hose. You can mount it horizontally or vertical. This spray head would look similar to this:
The entire system would look similar to this: (Got this from Flow-Rite website - they own this drawing)
As for a pump out, I doubt it had this option. Check to see if you can unscrew the "T" where the nut is. I have a hunch that it is set up this way as a plug. Once the boat is on the trailer you pull the "T" out to drain the livewell. So if this boat is always in water, unfortunately it will always have water in the livewell. Adding a pump out is not out of the question though, just a little more costly. This would allow you to empty the livewell while your boat is still in the water. It would require another aerator pump, a speacial pump out / recirc head from Flow-Rite, and some more plumbing. The cost is really in the pumps, all the flow-rite parts are actually pretty cheap. All in all I think it is worth it, and just ordered my parts to do this to my boat. With the two pumps, plumbing, wiring, thru-hulls, pump out / recirc head, and spray nozzle I I have approx. $150 in it. (I am also adding a automatic aerator timer... that was $55. You could use two toggle switchs and manually control them cheaper. This method should only run you about $100.)
Here is how that system is set up: (Got this from Flow-Rite website - they own this drawing)
Iverson_4x4
Active member
Got to thinking about this somemore... This could be a gravity feed system since you didn't mention there was already a pump installed. Is there a seperate plug in the live well to drain it by, or the "T" could be removed as the plug as I mentioned earlier in a gravity feed system.
If it is a gravity feed system then the "T" is your water inlet which should be below or right at the boat's water line. This would flow water from the bottom of the boat into the live well and fill it up to the boats water line. The top spicket would be your overflow which would direct any overflow water out of the transom.
Unfortunately if the "T" doesn't come out and there isn't seperate plug there isn't any way to drain the water from the live well. If that was the case I would drill another hole through bottom of the boat, have 1" long pipe welded in that will fit a plug. If you don't want to drill a hole in your boat and/or don't have a way to get it welded you can use a submersible bilge pump, tie it into your overflow spicket. Don't block the overflow with the hose though. Just glue a "T" (facing down) to the spicket so you have a hose going in one opening down to the bilge pump, and on other leg of the "T" glue in a shut off valve. When you want to fill the livewell with water have the Shut Off Valve open to act as an overflow, and when you want to use the bilge pump to empty the livewell close the Shut Off Valve. This set up is relatively cheap. $25 bilge pump; $10 in fittings, clamps, shut off valve, and hose; & another $15 in toggle switch, wiring, & inline fuse.
There's multiple different ways to set up a system...
If it is a gravity feed system then the "T" is your water inlet which should be below or right at the boat's water line. This would flow water from the bottom of the boat into the live well and fill it up to the boats water line. The top spicket would be your overflow which would direct any overflow water out of the transom.
Unfortunately if the "T" doesn't come out and there isn't seperate plug there isn't any way to drain the water from the live well. If that was the case I would drill another hole through bottom of the boat, have 1" long pipe welded in that will fit a plug. If you don't want to drill a hole in your boat and/or don't have a way to get it welded you can use a submersible bilge pump, tie it into your overflow spicket. Don't block the overflow with the hose though. Just glue a "T" (facing down) to the spicket so you have a hose going in one opening down to the bilge pump, and on other leg of the "T" glue in a shut off valve. When you want to fill the livewell with water have the Shut Off Valve open to act as an overflow, and when you want to use the bilge pump to empty the livewell close the Shut Off Valve. This set up is relatively cheap. $25 bilge pump; $10 in fittings, clamps, shut off valve, and hose; & another $15 in toggle switch, wiring, & inline fuse.
There's multiple different ways to set up a system...
That "T" comes out on the bottom of the boat and is flush with the boat. No other holes are in the well. There is a pipe on the outside pointing toward the rear of the boat that had a clear piece of tubing on it that ran from there to the transom but nothing was attached to it. I removed it because it was in bad shape. I have no way to see where it went so I'm assuming that the top elbow is where it is going to. I'll see if I can get a mirror and look up in there to be sure. Thank you for your replies. Any and all help is greatly appreciated.
redbug
Well-known member
do you have a nole in the transom or a patch? that could have been used to hold a pump?
the spray bar should run across the top of the well to add oxygen to the water the TEE is the overflow and will dump out the bottom of the boat \you remove the Tee to fast fill on the water or drain on land.
I would look for a 500gph livewelle pump and place it on a switch depending on water temps i would run the pump foor 2 mins out of 15 mins to keep the water fresh just make sure that the well doesnt over flow if it does run the well for 1 min and see if that does the trick.
if you leave the water in the well all day the fish will die even if you add ice
the spray bar should run across the top of the well to add oxygen to the water the TEE is the overflow and will dump out the bottom of the boat \you remove the Tee to fast fill on the water or drain on land.
I would look for a 500gph livewelle pump and place it on a switch depending on water temps i would run the pump foor 2 mins out of 15 mins to keep the water fresh just make sure that the well doesnt over flow if it does run the well for 1 min and see if that does the trick.
if you leave the water in the well all day the fish will die even if you add ice
redbug
Well-known member
is there another way to drain the well?? if not that sucker should come out ?? not sure how but they had to have a way to drain it.
I meant to answer this in my last post, guess it slipped my mind.
Yes, there is a Patch in the transom. A big one, probably about a 1" bolt and nut...rusted up pretty bad too. I just bought a bass boat sight unseen (Which I will NEVER do again) and thinking about stripping it of everything I could use in this one (Bilge, aerator, all connections, depth finder, trolling motor, batteries, ect.). It has all the lines, through hull connections and stuff. All pumps work good just need to know about hooking them up and running everything to make it work. When I'm done I'm gonna try to sell just the motor, T/T and controls.
Yes, there is a Patch in the transom. A big one, probably about a 1" bolt and nut...rusted up pretty bad too. I just bought a bass boat sight unseen (Which I will NEVER do again) and thinking about stripping it of everything I could use in this one (Bilge, aerator, all connections, depth finder, trolling motor, batteries, ect.). It has all the lines, through hull connections and stuff. All pumps work good just need to know about hooking them up and running everything to make it work. When I'm done I'm gonna try to sell just the motor, T/T and controls.
I'm at a loss here. Can someone explain to me what I need to get this live well working? At the moment I have 4 pumps (3 of which are in the bass boat), 2 of them are "Bilge" pumps, one is an "aerator" and not sure about the other cause I have to move the fuel cell before I can get to it. What I want is to be able to fill/drain this well (Drain can be a plug type drain, doesn't matter) and keep fish alive. I've seen them built on you tube and pics of some but my mind just doesn't seem to comprehend the workings of them lol... #-o
