SportFishing and Charters Forum - tuna tubes
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Seamus Day
04-18-2011, 06:23 AM
Does anyone have a plan or any ideas about making home made tuna tubes? The cost of shop bought ones is ridiculous given how little we may use them., but I guess they would be very useful to ahve in the arsenal occassionally. I have plenty of space on the transom above the splash wells and various pumps in close proxomity.
never_skunked
04-18-2011, 07:02 AM
If you already have a live well you can plumb them into that line with an on/off valve. I was going to make one on my boat for blue runners and spanish. I believe the parts list was under 60 bucks with the valve, extra tubing and the PVC.
You could easily make them out of pvc - either 6" for smaller baits or 8" for big baits. A 10' piece of 6" schedule 40 is about $30 here, 8" about $50, and 4 end caps and you have enough material for 4 of them. Just glue the end cap on and then drill a hole toadd a 1" plastic thru hull to that bottom cap for the water going in. Some wood to frabicate a couple of mounts and (without the pumps) you are good to go for less than $75. Getting the pump flow rate right is the key to making them work - too fast and the fish can't breath and too slow and they die of lack of water flow. It will take a big pump to do 4 tubes.
A washdown pump won't work. You need at least 1100gph for 2 tubes. I bought mine, but what I'd do is get the pvc and the end caps and find a plastic funnel that fits snugly in the pvc, drill a hole in the cap for the hose fitting and put the end of the funnel into the hose fitting, cut to length and glue it in place.