Snyder Industries 1300 Gallon ASTM XLPE Heavy Duty Vertical Storage Tank

The natural white wall in the black tank's shell

Everything dimensional about this tank is shared with its stablemates: 72 inches across, 87 inches tall, 1,300 gallons, one 18 inch manway, 320 pounds on the sheet, and a wall rated for a specific gravity of 1.9 with 20,600 pounds of maximum contents. What is different is the colour field, which reads Natural White where the rest of the shell reads Black, and the difference is practical rather than cosmetic. A natural white wall is translucent enough to show a level from outside, so an operator walking past reads the tank without climbing to the manway and without trusting a sender that nobody has calibrated this year. That is worth real money in a room where a level is checked by eye several times a shift, and it is the single reason to buy this part number over the black tank with the same rating in the same shell. It costs you something too. A translucent wall lets light into the liquid, so anything that degrades in sunlight belongs in the black shell instead, and a white tank standing outdoors will grow algae in water service where a black one will not. Indoors, or under a roof, the argument swings back to white. Site it exactly as its stablemates are sited: 10,842 pounds of water and 20,600 at the rating bearing on the whole 72 inch floor, because a rotationally molded tank carries on its floor and nothing else, on a slab poured to the concrete pad sizing guide, level and in full contact, inside a berm sized to the tank where the liquid is regulated. Band the empty shell to structure or to anchors on the day it lands and check the bands after the first storm, because seven feet three inches of empty tank at 320 pounds is a sail whatever colour it is. Run 1,300 gallons against the draw between deliveries in the tank sizing calculator, and take the reserve and the warm-weather freeboard from the tank sizing guide.

Colour and grade across the 1830400 shell

The table splits two ways. On colour, this is the only natural white tank in the shell, and the 1830400N48 is the black tank with the same rating and the same listed weight, which is the straight swap when light is a problem for the liquid. On rating, the 1830400N46 and 1830400N40 are the lighter-listed black walls, each rated as its own sheet says, for liquids that do not need what this wall is rated to carry. Then the shape changes: the 1830200N40 puts 1,200 gallons on a 60 inch circle and stands 109 inches, for a tight aisle and a high ceiling, and the 1770000C34 lays 1,500 gallons across an 86 inch base at 72 inches tall, for a low roof and a generous pad. Buy this one for an indoor room where the level gets read by eye and the liquid is dense.

Still deciding between these? Freight to your ZIP often settles it; the wider tanks ship differently. Or call 866-418-1777 and we will walk the table with you.

Fill, vent, and reading the level through the wall

• Vent: the sheet lists an 18 inch threaded, vented manway. The vent path must move air out of the shell faster than the delivery pump moves liquid in; when it cannot, the tank takes pressure it was not built for. Size it to the pump, keep the path clear between deliveries, and run it outdoors on a liquid that fumes rather than into the room where people read the level.
• Fill: down a dip tube to the floor. Bottom filling keeps foam off the inside of a translucent wall, which matters here more than on a black tank, because foam and film on the inside are what stop you reading the level through it.
• Headspace: freeboard for thermal expansion at the 140 F / 60 C service limit, from the sizing guide. The advantage of a white wall is that the operator can see the freeboard; mark the fill line on the outside so what they see means something.
• Outlet: the outlet field reads "1 Manway / Lid" and gives no bottom fitting size, so the draw-off connection is specified at order against the liquid you name.
• Service limit: 140 F / 60 C. Warranty: 3 year.

Below the shell the discipline is the same as for any tank this size: the first valve on its own support off the pad, a flexible connector between the tank fitting and hard pipe, a transfer pump below the take-off so gravity primes it, and a low-level float that stops it before it pulls air. What is different is the inspection. On a white tank you can see the liquid, so the wall itself becomes the gauge and the record: keep it clean, keep the lid shut between deliveries so nothing drops in to stain it, write the liquid's name and the rating on it, and still put a light inside at the headspace band when the manway is open, because the band above the liquid is where a tank ages and the outside of the wall will not tell you about it.

Where seeing the liquid matters

An indoor chemical room with tanks in a row and an operator who checks levels on the way past, a batching area where the recipe depends on knowing what is left, a laboratory or pilot line, a food plant sanitation room: those all trade the sunlight protection of a black wall for the ability to read the tank at a glance. The rating is what makes this one useful for dense products in those rooms, and whether a cross-linked shell suits the chemistry in the first place is the argument made in the cross-linked versus high density polyethylene article. Water is far inside this rating, so the tank holds it easily, but a fire reserve is sized and freeze-protected to its own rules, which the fire-water reservoir design guide sets out, and a white tank standing in daylight is the wrong shell for stored water anyway.

A white 1,300 out of Chowchilla

This tank is listed out of Chowchilla, California at freight class 300, and at 72 by 87 inches it rides upright inside a standard trailer, so the lane is an ordinary one; the freight cost estimator prices it to your ZIP and the listed price is before freight. Take 320 pounds off with forks or a strap under the body, never through the manway, and get the bands on before the truck leaves. Fill with water to the manway, hold it, and walk the base looking at the pad edge and the fitting. One extra step on a white tank: look at the wall against a light while it is full of clean water, and note anything you see on the inside, because that is the clearest view of this tank you will ever get. Write the outlet fitting size and material on the site plan; the replacement is ordered by those two words.