Air is Not Oxygen
AIR defined by Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_atmosphere
Electrical aerators and water pumps are used to aerate livewell water.
OXYGEN defined by Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen
Pure oxygen systems systems are used to oxygenate livewell water.
The choice of gas you choose to give your tournament gamefish or live bait controls their life and health or insure disease and death in boat livewell, bait tanks, tournament holding tanks and release boat haul tanks every summer. Contrary to popular belief, oxygen and air are very different gases.
Many fishing articles, fishermen and some biologist are often unclear and may be very misleading when it comes to these different gases. How often have you read in fishing magazines or heard fishermen, a biologist or fishing tournament official tell you that, "more aeration or bigger water pumps will insure more oxygen and better livewell oxygenation," or something similar. The glaring fact that will not go away is that pumping more water and more aeration does not and will never insure minimal safe oxygenation in any livewell or bait tank that is overstocked at any time of the year, especially in the summer.
The reason that fish hatcheries always transport live fish with pure compressed oxygen or liquid oxygen (LOX) is to insure that their transport water will never fall below 100% dissolved oxygen saturation, whether they are transporting 1 fish (like Texas Parks & Wildlife Department [bass] Lunker Program) or hauling 10,000 fish for a 1 hour overland trip or a 3 day trip hauling live fish from Florida to Texas on I-10.
100% or greater dissolved oxygen (DO) saturation is the professional gold standard for live fish transport water quality not only in America, but world-wide. Any fish hatchery manager will confirm the fact that jobs depend on their ability to maintain safe transport water quality with minimal post transport delayed mortality .
Be sharp. It's easy to confuse air with oxygen and nitrogen, these gases are all colorless, odorless and tasteless and all make clear bubbles in livewell water.
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