Back in the days when I started tournament fishing ,my partner and I had a boat with a homemade livewell,we had an old Glastron trihull open bow and got the local plumbing and heating shop to make us the livewell,they make duct work out of tin so was no problem to make,positioned it in the rear and glued some matching carpet to the sides ,picked up a 12v air pump(cheap bike pump),If I recall we had to fill with buckets,then just pump air as needed,worked surprisingly well!
Depending on the boat we have made them out of a cooler with a battery operated air pump.
For our belly boat or 12' aluminum we take a small tire tube, one of those laundry bags that you throw your laundry into then into the wash machine (one with a draw cord) and a 3 foot peice of firm pipe. We take the pip and make a circle and tiptie it so it cant come undone. That goes into the bottom of the bag to hold it open. The innertube is then put in the top to keep it open and floating. We then strap the tub and the pipe into the bag with tip ties and put a clip on the end of the draw string to clip it to the boat. You can easily open and close the live well and it goes right into the lake so it takes up no room. It also has very little drag when empty so its great with the belly boat.
I used an old rv water tank,,cut a hole in the top,, framed the hole with rivited in alum. angle iron. for the pump I used an rv water pump and bought the fitting you drill into the bottom of the transom of the boat. Turn on the pump and it sucks water out of the lake tofill the tank and runs out an ovr flow through the side of the boat. if you have the fill tube enter the tank through a copper tube will holes drilled in it then it will airate at the same time. It might be a little more work than you want but a couple hundred bux will do it all and its done right
home made live well???
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