Also there was a comment on too much water flow and damaging bait. I’m usually using mackerel that seem to like a lot of water. Any drawback to putting in a higher volume pump with a valve to lower flow when necessary? Thanks in advance.
I think you should be fine as long as the valve is on the outlet side, not the input/seacock side of the pump, but I'd be curious to hear a more experienced opinion on that from someone here. Can it damage the pump?
When I was considering building a livewell for my last boat, this article was helpful:
https://www.marlinmag.com/livewell-101/
It recommends a pump that can recirculate your livewell's volume 1000X/day or 42X/hr, but you can probably get away with less. For reference, I'm guessing the OEM livewell on my 2300 DVCC is ~20-25 gallons, which would call for an 840-1,050GPH pump. The 700GPH Rule that was on the boat when I bought it has been enough to keep Boston mackerel happy for 6+ hours AND that's with restricted flow from a barnacle-filled pickup (which will be replaced this season).