Cost effective cistern - water storage

Cost effective - read cheap or even free? I plan to draw water from a well with a 110v pump and store it in some sort of cistern. I will then use a 12v pressure demand pump to serve the house.
In an ideal world I would mount a 300 - 500 gallon container on a trailer and transport the water in until I get the well down. Then either bury the container or build a structure over it. No current intention of using it during the excessively cold months. So far my best bet is a number of 50 gal plastic drums (which I have) but I would prefer a single container. I have seen the ?300? gallon cube shaped chemical containers with integrated pallets but all have been used to carry some pretty scary stuff!
Any ideas??

 

Thanks guys. "Caged water tanks" was what I needed. Found some on craigs list that aren't free, but not an arm and a leg either. Or maybe I can get my buddy in Eagle River to get a few from BTPost and bring them down with him when he flies down for some fishing this summer!

 

Check out the local farm supply stores like Tractor Supply, Rural King, Orscheln, Fleet and Farm, etc. They have polyethylene tanks up to about 2500 gallons for water and farm chemicals. They will have a nice 150-300 gallon tank designed just to fit a pickup truck bed. Even the big tanks are designed for strapping down to truck or semi trailer to transport water. Here are some prices from a TSC near me in the Midwest:
210 gal pickup tank $180
325 gal pickup tank $250
425 gal pickup tank $300
550 gal black poly storage tank $500
550 gal white poly storage tank $380
1550 gal white poly storage tank $650
1500 gal black poly storage tank $1000
2500 gal black poly storage tank $1400

Not cheap but you know what's NOT been in a brand new tank.

AT

 

BE CAREFUL WITH UNKNOWN CAGED TANKS SOME MAY HAVE BEEN USED TO HOLD DE-ICING FLUID...
if you are not sure what they held/ labels have been removed it might be safer to pass until you can be sure...

 

Interestingly I use the caged containers and they are all second hand but were used for food grade items.. i was alarmed when my second arrived and I happened to see a flammable HAZCHEM label on it... I panicked as we had used the water from the previous.

However it turns out they are used for food syrups which are perfectly safe however do require a flammable label due to the sugar content.

 

This majestic cistern was recently discovered beneath one of the lawns at Buffalo Bayou Park in Houston

 

Culvert for rainwater collection. Would this work?

 

Air craft deicing uses propylene glycol, which is used in food processing.

 

Don't know if I would trust it.........rust happens

 

It's why you buy new poly tanks, at about $.050/gallon it's probably cheaper than those caged tanks (IBC). I have 2 new 5,000 gallon tanks that I need to bury, one new 3,000 gallon tank I need to put next to the the 3,000 gallon tank that got scorched in the fire, but is still working, and the 2 5,000 gallon tanks that have holes burned in them from the fire, plan to buy plastic panels and weld them back so they hold water.

Rancher

 

Understood, but still just don't like the idea of using metal like that. Crawled inside some pretty nasty metal containers in my time.

 

The way I figure it, every single drop of stored water is going to get refiltered any way no matter what it's been stored in.
I have 2 of the caged units had some kind of syrup I washed out with alcohol and cleaned right up , I also have old water heater tanks repaired and in service .
I installed a swamp cooler float valves on the caged tanks continually receiving city water, and water flows through feeding the chickens . I have other cistern tanks also, altogether over 2000 gallons.
That's not really a lot of water in the grand scope of things but it's a start.
Years ago On the desert we built a shed and put our water storage in a loft.
I got the water up there by having a tank in the truck I could fill at another location, and when I got home I could pressurize the tank in the truck with a little 12 volt air compressor, and hook a hose from the truck tank to any hose fitting on the house and sent the water strait up to the upper tanks.
I knew when the were full through a over flow/vent hose, out side the loft .

 

For the purpose of water storage, good quality tanks are the best as they have a long life and hygienic also. Earlier in my industry, I was using simple plastic tanks. But their life is short, so I changed all the tanks and fixed stainless steel tanks. These tanks are shining and adding seven stars to my industry. It requires washing only once in a fifteen days.

 

We used those stainless steel tanks on the ranch in NM. windmill to tank and overflow to stock tank

We never cleaned the stainless steel tanks. just had goldfish and water weeds in the tank. it also doubled as a bath and a swimming pool