I still need to figure out how to plumb the livewell. It has two existing holes, one on the side a few inches up, and one on the boat. There are two holes with sealed plugs at the stern. I'd be removing the existing fittings and putting in new ones as they were capped and sealed with silicone.
After looking at diagrams online, I was thinking about using the drain in the bottom to drain into a recirculating pump and running the intake back in through the side with a T fitting to run a smaller pipe up the front of the livewell with a submerged aerator bar aimed aft to provide current, and another aerator bar on the top to actually aerate. The drain would run to a T valve where I could switch between letting it drain out the back of the boat or direct it into the pump. I would probably also have to drill another hole for use as an overflow, going into the drain at the back through a check valve. For the intake, I would have a T valve to let me pump water in from the lake to fill the livewell, then shut it off to just recirculate the water.
Ideally, I'd like to be able to just run water in from the lake, aerate it, and drain it back out through the overflow, using a removable standpipe in the drain hole as the overflow. When it's time to leave the lake, I'd remove the standpipe and drain the water out that way.
I could also just run pump to fill the livewell, put it on a timer to pump every 5-10 minutes for 30 seconds to refresh the water a bit to lower ammonia levels, put in the overflow standpipe as described above, and use an internal pump to aerate the water and provide some current. I posted a diagram of my existing livewell and the odd shape it has, which necessitates putting something up front to make sure aerated water is thoroughly dispersed. It's somewhere in this thread.
Everything would be made from smooth bore PVC, no corrugated flexible hoses that could trap Eurasian milfoil or let small zebra mussels "hide" out, or let anything else get easily caught in the tubing. Something that would be easy to flush with hot water to kill stuff off.
Minnesota has a big problem with inconsiderate boaters who don't take invasive species seriously, and it's affecting the lakes. Lake Minnetonka, the largest and most popular lake in the Twin Cities, is thoroughly infested with Eurasian milfoil and zebra mussels. So are many lakes. It's affecting local populations of native mussels, pushing out native plants, and impacting fish counts. It all comes from boaters not cleaning off their boats, emptying their bilge and let it dry out long enough between lakes, and just a "whatever" attitude about it. All it takes is one person to infest an entire lake. We took advantage of a free hot water wash at one of the lakes, and even had him pump the hot water in through the boat drain to heat up and kill off anything that may have been in the bilge, while running the bilge pump to flush that out, too. We plan on using the boat at a few different lakes, so we take no chances. Better safe than sorry!
But I digress, I need to get that livewell figured out as it's the next thing I want to do after the transom, though it will be easier to do while the splashwell is off.
