Pressure Tank for Trough: Brand Important?

Moooooo

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Joined
May 4, 2019
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34
Location
FL
I have a pump that fills a water trough for a few cattle on my land. The pressure in the bladder dropped. I would guess the bladder is fried, but it has never been touched in at least 8 years, so for all I know, it's normal for them to need reinflating. I am pumping it back up to see what happens.

If I have to get a new tank, does it matter what brand I buy? I see Tractor Supply has tanks made by a company called Reliance. As long as the price isn't crazy, I would rather have a 20-year tank than a 5- year tank.
 
I replace them with whatever the local hardware store has in stock st the time. I've got 4 different brands in service currently and other than stickers and paint color they all appear oddly the same.
 
Thanks for the help.

I would go with a well company, but when they have quoted prices in the past, they were pretty crazy compared to buying the same stuff off the web. I realize they have to charge for labor, but replacing a tank is a 15-minute job, so going from $400 to $1500 does not seem reasonable.

I agree about fixing things up so they can be replaced easily. I have done that on a sprinkler pump and two pool systems. My machine tools all have plugs, as does my big compressor.

I had an idea which I think is worth sharing. A flexible tube instead of a pipe to connect a pump tank. If the pad the tank is sitting on shifts, the tank's weight won't break the pipe. My home tank is on a concrete pad, and when the pad subsided, the pipe broke, so I redid it my way.

The cattle tank held pressure for a day, so I will give it a chance. If it dies, I'll set a budget of $400 and see what I can get.

Not sure what size this thing is. It's about 4 feet tall and maybe two feet wide.

The nameplate says Conair. The web says this is now a Sta-rite company. Sta-rite makes pool equipment. Real garbage at jewelry prices. I would not trust them to make a decent pump tank.
 
Sta-Rite makes lot of things. Their parent company is Pentair which makes even more things including pressure tanks for O&G companies.
(My pool pump and filtration system is Pentair and all I can say is that I have had zero trouble with it in the last 3 years since I've been here. I have no idea how old the system is but there is a label on the quad filter tank from 2009. )
The original pump froze and cracked the fluid end in the winter 2023, but that's not the fault of the company that made it.

YRMV
 
Here is how I think people should look at products from Sta-rite and the other pool companies: compare the quality to similar products used in other applications. That's when you start to see how flimsy and poorly engineered this stuff is.

Weak materials. Materials that can't stand up to UV radiation and...get this...chlorine. Bizarre means of clamping things together. Persistent leaks. Valves that require periodic greasing. Like that's normal. All sorts of gaskets and O-rings that fail quickly.

My pool had a huge DE filter from Sta-Rite. It looked like something from a science fiction movie. Very unpleasant to work on, needlessly. I took it to the dump and installed a cartridge filter. The cartridge filter cost me about a grand. In any other industry, it would have cost maybe $300, and it would have been built better.

My system also had an inline chlorinator that was really hard to seal. And the O-rings wore out fast, even with lube, which shouldn't be necessary. It was stupid, so I plugged it up with epoxy and used a floating chlorinator instead.

I have ridiculous pop-up nozzles in the floor of my pool. They're supposed to push dirt toward the main drain. They do nothing whatsoever, but they can deteriorate and need replacement just fine, and the pipes can also start leaking underground, so $$$$ when that happens. They're a gimmick sold to gullible homeowners.

The pool industry is full of BS products. My dad had a pool with long hoses that stuck out in the pool, supposedly to move dirt around. Did nothing but increase the builder's profit. And look bad. Someone sold him a machine which was supposed to magically create chlorine. That didn't work.

There are people out there selling miracle algae-prevention products made from copper. They don't work, but they sell.

My dad's old house had a sprinkler pump with a cast iron housing. Lasted something like 60 years. In the same shed, there was a pool pump that gave out every few years. I have no respect for this stuff.
 
Mine is DE as well. 4 cartridge filters that need cleaning twice per year on average.
I'll let ya know when it wears out, provided I live that long.
 

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