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I remember going to a friend's cotton farm one summer and we swam in the actual stock tank that the cattle used! The water was pumped up from the artesian wells by windmill and the cows lined up around the rim. It was a lot bigger and decidely unclean. But in the middle of the New Mexico desert, it was one way to keep cool. This little stock tank is a sparkling oasis in Santa Rosa. Congrats on making a cool backyard getaway.

YES! glad someone else tried this before me... i've the plans all sketched out, too... heading to her blog presently.

awesome.

This is a farm swimming pool if I've ever seen one! My friend's family had beef cattle, and they would fill one of these up for us to swim in during the summer. I don't remember it being particularly dirty, but it didn't have the fancy-shmancy pump attached to it. I don't know how they kept it clean.

This is awesome. I love the idea!

My father is a pool chem guy, and I'd talk to him about keeping the water from getting too alkaline or too basic (which is a major problem with pools), but it looks worth the try!

Are they going to wait for one of their kids to get sick before they start treating their pool water? All these people have done is provide their kids with a steaming bowl of e. coli to swim in. For the love of God and the health of your kids, please install an ozone or UV system to treat that water if you have an ill-informed problem with chlorine. Jeez!

We used to do this back in the good ol' college days in Texas. I think it was even jacked up on cinder blocks with an open fire under it for winter... Until the 'engineers' rigged something up with propane. It never occurred to us, the potential harmful bacteria. I guess we drank enough alcohol to be safe. ;)

We'll be adding an ozone treatment this season, or we will start in with the chemicals. We've got a pool guy in the family as well. Thanks for your concern! ... Cathy

Hurray!

It's not terribly deep, and it looks to be out in the sun. Wouldn't UV and oxygen be enough to kill off a lot of harmful bacteria (not to mention all the chlorine that's in tap water to begin with).

Our friends parents have a salt water pool. I know nothing of pools, but it feels amazing when you are in/out of it. None of that starchy chemical feel.

We had one of these growing up on the farm, and my brother and I absolutely loved it. My dad even built an awning over it so the water wouldn't get too hot on sunny summer days. We would run around in circles and create a whirlpool, and then let the swirling water carry us around. It was definitely not clean water, but as far as I can remember none of us got sick from it, and my brother and I now have pretty robust immune systems (and no allergies). The bottoms of those tanks do get pretty slippery, though, so make sure the kids don't slip and hit their heads on the sides!

Love it love it. Of course I am from Texas. If I had a house and yard I would so have one.

cool cool cool!

love it. are there sharp edges on those tanks if they are meant for stock? what is the base like?

That is AWESOME. VERY awesome.

Emily

Oh for pity's sake Paul, do you really believe there are more germs in a clean stock tank than in the average river or lake that many of us swim in? Chill already. Most of my mid-western relatives lived on farms (I was the city girl) and we all swam in stock tanks (used ones) every summer. No one got sick EVER.

I wonder why my galvanized tub (smaller version) is rusting so badly.

My daughters' grandparents did this back in the mid 1990's. No filter though. The girls loved it!! When they 'outgrew' it, their grandpa took the empty steel 'pool' out to the corrals for the cattle.

Paul- some people have severe allergies to chlorine (myself included)...so your "ill informed" comment is way off base. Perhaps they just don't want to deluge their bodies with unnecessary toxic chemicals? I'm sure they're being responsible and testing the pool water regularly.

Wow this brings me back to my childhood (but a lot cleaner). I love it, and honestly Paul I'm more worried about drinking the tap water in LA then I am worried about swimming in a this pool.

Brettm: The top is rolled, so there are no sharp edges. The sides are surprisingly comfortable to lean against. The bottom is just metal, so it's reflective and a little slippery.

Thanks for all the positive comments, we love the pool.

There is a website that talks about adapting these tanks to make hot tubs. Certain kinds of galvanized tubs are more suitable than others, I recall. Other people use them to make above ground lily pools.

The problem is, how to get one delivered to a city dwelling. They are too big to fit in the back of a car, or even a small pickup truck in some cases. You need to rent a special truck. And then how does one get it into the back yard of a brownstone? Enquiring minds would like to know. Over the roof?

"We would run around in circles and create a whirlpool, and then let the swirling water carry us around..." - safarikate

Oh the memories! We did this too...so fun! Thanks for reminding me :D

Oh, this brings back memories! Every summer I spent a week with my cousins who lived on a farm and they had one of these but without the filter. We'd just fill it up and swim. No one ever got sick. Actually, I think all the germs I was exposed to playing out in the yard every day made me healthier, built my immune system. lol

The neighbors used to have one of these, no filter or anything, just slimy algae - none of us ever got sick, but we also spent plenty of time in the lake and river, rolling around in untreated sewage and cow runoff and survived that just fine. Looks like fun!

aesargeant: Please take a chemistry class. Toxicity is a matter of dosage, water itself is toxic in the right dose. Chlorinated water is perfectly harmless to human beings and has never been proven otherwise. It sure beats the alternatives. Chlorine causes an immune response in you. Interesting. Does it happen only when you know there's chlorine present? How do you cope with the naturally-occurring levels of chlorine that surround you at all times? Is it OK when it's bound to sodium or are you allergic to table salt too? How does your nervous system work then?

LBhirise: The problem with closed systems like pools is that they recirculate the same small amount of water. Recirculating water and not treating it will allow microorganisms (most benign and some really bad) to build their numbers to the point where you can get sick. A pond or a stream is not a closed system because it's forever being replenished just like functioning stock tanks are. Untreated pool water is one poopy diaper away from a crypto outbreak. It probably won't hurt anybody in the long run but crypto is no fun.

You can only test for organisms you suspect are present. Unfortunately there aren't readily available tests that will magically show you everything that's in water. Seriously though and with all Chicken Little-ing set aside, if you plan to reuse the same water for months at a time you have to do something to keep it sterile. Chlorination's the cheapest option, but there are other options out there like ozone filters and UV treatment. Barring that, replace the water every week or so. Your intestines will thank you.

Cathy—

There’s a reason the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls chlorine a vital part of the first line of defense against bacteria and viruses that can make swimmers sick. Waterborne germs – too tiny to be removed by your filter -- can cause diarrhea, swimmer’s ear and skin infections, like athlete’s foot. Talk about ruining your day! Chlorine quickly and effectively disinfects pool water and kills most germs within minutes. When chlorine levels are managed within the recommended range for swimming pool water, authorities agree the chlorine itself does not pose any known health risks. The website www.healthypools.org includes information on how to recognize a healthy pool, including instructions for testing pool water chemistry.

Sunspot42—

Ozone and ultraviolet light can enhance water quality and control some chlorine resistant germs, such as Cryptosporidium. However, these technologies do not replace the need for chlorine. Unlike other disinfectants, only chlorine provides a residual level that continues to disinfect long after it’s applied.

Best Wishes,
Jeff

Jeff Sloan
American Chemistry Council

Paul, Jeff-
Please have a beer and chill.

I'm sure that the homeowners will attack the poopy diaper problem if it arises. Otherwise these obviously intelligent and capable adults have made a personal decision that the benefits of avoiding chemical treatment (chlorinated pool water exacerbates dry skin and eczema) outweigh the (rather unlikely) probability of a swimming-pool borne illness. Jeff obviously makes a living from selling these types of products, and it seems likely that Paul does to- but please don't be so condescending to those of us who choose not to buy into your services.

I, like many other respondents, managed to spend most of my young life swimming in microorganism- infested ponds, creeks, lakes, reservoirs and cattle tanks with no ill effects. I'm going to go out on an un-googled limb and say there is a statistically insignificant liklihood of getting any sort of infection from a clean, aerated, human-only and privately used, pool. And fwiw, I'm pretty sure the design fans that frequent this blog would prefer that you take your marketing ploys and scare tactics someplace else.

Ummmm. I'm a kitchen designer with no real horse in this race Talby. Believe it or not, some lay people can see the benefits of science, even the science of chemistry. So while we're checking assumptions, let's not assume that all public health measures are some dark, corporate conspiracy to make you sick and take your money.

I too had a rural childhood and spent a huge amount of that time swimming in creeks, ponds and lakes. A natural water reservoir is an intact ecosystem that constantly replenishes itself with fresh water. A closed, thousand-gallon recirculating system has nothing in common with a stream or a pond and is in fact stagnant water.

Swimming in such water isn't a guarantee that someone will get sick, it is however a step down a slope that doesn't have a happy ending.

Congrats on not being part of a global chlorine conspiracy, I guess, but you've still managed to ignore my point. This water is not stagnant (you noticed the "recirculating" part yourself) and is private, aerated and filtered, which means that it presents no real likelihood of contamination. (Surprise surprise- I actually *agree* that chlorine is necessary in other situations.)

The beef I have is the alarmist tendencies presented that if someone chooses to do something that does not perfectly line up with your notions of "safe" then it is surely a "step down a slope" to some nebulous disaster- regardless of how unlikely any such event might be.

I also appreciate your assumption about my valuation of science- I happen to be a geologist and though my physicist boyfriend claims my field "doesn't count" the last time I checked, it is indeed one of the hard sciences. (The benefit of having an education and career in the sciences is that one starts to appreciate the difference between factual evidence and probability vs. the over-reactions of doom sayers and chicken littles.)