T-H Marine AFD-2-DP Livewell Aerator Filter Dome

Run a livewell or baitwell on your boat and sooner or later something gets sucked into the aerator pump. Grass. Sand. Fish scales. A stray bit of weed off the last spot you fished. That debris is what kills aerator pumps, and the T-H Marine AFD-2-DP Aerator Filter Dome is the cheap little part that stops it from happening. It sits over your 3/4-inch thru-hull or pump intake and screens the junk out before it ever reaches the impeller.

The design is simple and it works. It's a grill-type dome, a curved surface covered in perforations, and that shape is doing real work. The curve gives you more open area than a flat screen would, so even if a few holes get blocked by a leaf or a clump of grass, water keeps flowing through the rest. Your pump stays fed, your livewell keeps circulating, and the bait or the catch you're trying to keep alive stays alive. A clogged intake starves the pump, and a starved pump runs hot and dies early. This dome is the difference.

Mounting is about as easy as boat rigging gets. It's a two-piece filter, a base and the dome, and it goes on without fasteners. You slip the base behind a standard thru-hull flange or under the aerator pump, and the dome twists onto it. No drilling, no screws, no sealant gymnastics. If you already have a standard 3/4-inch thru-hull fitting for your aerator, this is a drop-in. That makes it just as friendly for a first-time livewell install as it is for swapping out a filter that's seen a few seasons.

Cleaning is where a lot of anglers appreciate it most. The dome twists off. That's it. Pull the boat, or reach in while it's on the trailer, give the top a twist, rinse out whatever it caught, and twist it back on. No tools. If you fish grassy lakes or run in sandy shallows, you'll want to check it regularly, and the twist-off top means checking it takes about ten seconds instead of turning into a project. Keep it clean and your aeration stays strong all day.

It fits 3/4-inch thru-hulls and pump intakes, which is the common size for livewell and baitwell aerator systems on most bass boats, bay boats, and multi-species rigs. It mounts behind standard thru-hulls, so if your boat came with a factory livewell setup, odds are good this matches right up. The finish is black, so it blends in against a dark hull bottom or bilge and doesn't stand out. It's sold as a single unit.

Because it's a molded non-metallic dome, there's nothing here to rust or corrode. It lives underwater and it's built for it. That matters on a part that spends its whole life submerged in a livewell intake or hanging off the bottom of the boat at the thru-hull. T-H Marine backs it with a limited one-year warranty.

Who's this for? Anybody running a livewell, a baitwell, or a recirculating aeration system who wants their pump to last. Tournament anglers keeping a five-fish limit healthy for the scale. Bait fishermen trying to keep a well full of frisky shiners or shad. Weekend anglers who just don't want to be the person whose livewell pump quit on a hot afternoon. It's a small, inexpensive piece of insurance for a pump that costs a lot more to replace than this filter costs to install.

One honest note on what it is and isn't. This is a filter dome, the screen that protects the intake. It's not the aerator pump itself and it's not a thru-hull fitting, so make sure your boat already has the standard 3/4-inch thru-hull or pump intake it's designed to cover. If it does, this is a quick, no-fuss upgrade that pays for itself the first time it catches a wad of grass that would've cooked your pump.