Sap tank for an ATV?

[maple marc]

I collect sap in buckets in the bed of my ATV, maybe 8 buckets at a time (5 gallon each). It would be ideal if I had a tank that fit in the bed: perhaps a 50 gallon tank with a wide mouth on top, not too high, with a quickly closing lid. It would also have a drain fitting.

I haven't seen any commercial tanks that fit this ideal. Any ideas? How about making one? Materials?

[Haynes Forest Products]

I have seen some of the plastic barrels made to work keep in mine thats alot of weight. Have you seen the small sprayer tanks for ATVs. I think a square tank would work best. Did you try poly tanks on Ebay

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

I have a neighbor who operates a sheet metal fabrication shop. He is currently fabricating a tank for the back of my Kubota RTV, about 75 gallons. He has constructed several similar ones, mostly custom built for small trailers for ATV's.

[Flat47]

Marc,
What do you have for an ATV?

[tapper]

I have an Arctic Cat Prowler. It takes about 5 minutes to remove the dump bed. I replace the dump bed with a 3/4" piece of plywood and strap a 65 gallon polytank on top.
The top of the tank is somewhat high not too uncomfortable to dump in but a little slow. New for me this season I made a small carrier to slip into the receiver hitch for a 20 gallon can. I will use a small pump to move the sap from the 20 gal can to the poly tank. Hopefully do away with all the lifting and speed up collection.

[maple maniac65]

I used to collect buckets with the 4 wheeler and I had a 35 gallon poly tank. Yes, it is a pain to dump into it so I used a ss milk strainer ( the ones that look like a big colander) and necked it down to fit in the top of the tank. Then using a flat milk filter I could filter out the crud that somehow ends up in the buckets when gathering. It added about a foot more dump heigth though.

[Nemo5]

Marc, I am wanting to do the same as you. I have a 55gal barrel on a stand outside of shack. I want a tank for my atv to collect with then pump into the 55gal barrel. There is an 25gal atv sprayer on sale at Cabelas for $159.99 but I would like to find the tank without the sprayer attachment as I have a pump already. Also being in Canada the exchange and shipping is to much.

[cncaboose]

Check out all the poly tanks at Northern Tool on line. There's got to be one to fit any application. I got 65 gallon ones there for my tractor front and rear. IF you are not in a big hurry to have it for this year they sometimes have deals with free shipping or other discounts.

[maplesyrupstove]

I used a 55 gallon barrel with a 4" hole to emptly my small sap buckets in. Then I used my pump to emptly my 15 gal totes and my half barrels. There is more pictures in Photobucket. Darrell

[maplesyrupstove]

year 2007 in photobucket.

[maple marc]

Thanks for so many good ideas.

Flat, we have two: JD Gator 4x6 and a Polaris Boss 4x6. It's very sloppy to fill the buckets in the back, then try to pound the lids on, then pry them off back at the shack. I usually use the Boss, as my wife uses the Gator for hauling muck buckets out of the horse paddock. Takes a while to clean the Gator and I don't like mixing sap with horse ****!

I imagine a beautiful fabricated metal tank would be expensive. I researched building a tank out of plywood, backed by epoxy resin, but epoxy might impart an off-taste. I'll check out some poly tanks.

[Toby]

Some guys around here have made trailers to go behind thier 4 wheelers with an old 55 gallon syrup barrel. If i run into one this weekend i'll take a pic. But they are pretty simple. Just a trailer made to the size of a barrel. Then cut a hole in the top of the tank and weld a "funnel" on to dump the sap into. Then place a cover over the funnel. And to dump them you just put a pipeinto the bung of the barrel with either a stand pipe or a valve. Just be careful of the valve...they can break or open unexpectedly if you dont have them protected. Most of them also have large diameter tires on the trailer to make it easier to pull thru the mud you often find in the woods!

[Jeff E]

I will try and get a pic of the set up I used when buckets were collected.
We used our 350 Yamaha 4x4, had a 35 gal poly tank on the back rack, a 65 gallon poly in the little ATV trailer (3'x5' bed).

The 4 wheeler has pretty low gearing, and we compacted the snow on the trails with a snowmobile. Within a few days it would set up hard and we could fill these tanks up and run along just fine.

ONly trouble is when things start to thaw out and I began rutting up the woods.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I have a 125 gallon leg tank behind my tractor on a carryall and 65 gallon leg tank for the bucket on my tractor. Check around at local farm supplies or hardware stores. Chances are they have several different tanks in stock or can order whatever you want and have it pretty quickly and no shipping charges. I bought both of mine local--the biggest one at Southern States farm supply and the small one at a hardware store and they have or can get about any and every size of tank imaginable.