Toxic Micro-Fine Oxygen Bubbles Kill Bait and Fish

Toxic Micro-Fine Oxygen Bubbles – Thousands of Micro-Fine Oxygen Bubbles that remain suspended in livewell and bait tank water columns  can kill live bait and tournament fish during transports. These tiny micro-fine bubbles are so small and light that they cannot escape the water surface and remain suspended in the water column. Exposure to micro-fine oxygen bubbles burn, scare and damage delicate cell tissue.


1. Water and gas chemistry – micro-fine oxygen bubbles so tiny they remain suspended in the water column that make livewell water look milky transfer oxygen into solution fast and efficiently, quickly saturating/supersaturating water in seconds in a typical 20-30 gallon livewell or bait tank. Diffusers that make larger bubbles may take an extra minute or two to achieve the same DO saturation/supersaturation, but the final result is the same DO Saturation.

2. Fish Physiology and Fish Pathology – another matter that is seldom mentioned is that micro-fine oxygen bubbles negatively affect fish health – oxygen poisoning caused by continuous exposure to micro fine oxygen bubbles that coalesce to fish gills, cornea’s, scales, skin and fins can cause serious chemical burns and tissue damage resulting in blindness, death or disabling scar tissue if the fish survives the initial insult. Oxygen toxicity is usually caused by the fisherman’s ignorance of the device that makes the oxygen bubbles in his livewell water.

Micro-pore oxygen diffusers and livewell water pumps that entrain oxygen or air on the inlet side of a water pump’s impellers gas venturi device can produce thousands of suspended micro-fine gas bubbles in the livewell water column as the oxygen goes through the pump’s impellers. The size of an oxygen or air bubble can dramatically affect livewell water chemistry, gas transfer rates and dissolved gas concentrations.

We queried university professors and experts. Our concern is the pathophysiology (oxygen toxicity) occurring when micro-fine oxygen bubbles stick inside fish gills, get into blood, stick in eyes, on scales, fins and skin.

We asked University Professors, Fish Physiologist, the real fish doctors:

When captive fish are forced to breathe in clouds of suspended micro-fine oxygen bubbles (so fine the water looks milky) in livewells with relatively small functional water volumes, can these tiny gas bubbles injure fish or bait?

Is the stress response increased? Is the probability of delayed mortality increased?

Are we actually causing physiologic harm to tournament fish or live bait when holding and transporting them in clouds of bubbles for hours or even all day?

When we transport tournament bass, redfish, snook or live bait for hours or all day, what happens to gill tissue when thousands of tiny oxygen bubbles remain stuck in gills, on scales and fins all day?

Images and examples of these problems – see Ph.D. “Opinions” link.

We thank these university professors for offering their time,  providing their knowledge, expertise and opinions freely so that catch and release tournament anglers, as well as fishermen worldwide, can become better educated and hopefully take better care of live tournament fish and live bait in livewells and bait tanks during live transports.

We appreciate these expert opinions in fish cardiovascular physiology, fish biochemistry, fish pathology, fish physiology, and the principles and practices of modern aquaculture techniques.