How To Paint Your Stock Tank Pool

I know, I know. This stock tank pool is stinkin' cute. When Hunter and Cameron Premo told us they wanted a stock tank pool, we knew we had to do something really cool. Almost immediately I remembered our Airbnb in Lisbon, Portugal. It had pink and white striped floors and Casey and I were obsessed.

Now the pink on these floors was very pale, you almost can't even see it in the photos. But ever since this trip, we've tried to find a place to put pink and white stripes.

You can almost see the stripes on the floor here, but you get the point! We proposed the idea to Hunter and she and Cameron were 100% on board. We finally figured out a cool way to incorporate this inspiration in a project!

Hunter chose a beautiful pink (that you can actually see). The color is called Everblooming by Behr.

So the first thing you need to know about painting your stock tank pool is that you should not paint with regular paint or spray paint directly onto the metal. The paint will chip and repairing it is basically impossible. We've talked about this before in a previous post where we coated the inside of our pool. You can read that post here.

What you have to do is coat the metal with a rubber coating first. Once you've done that, you can use regular paint on top of the rubber layer on the outside of the pool. On the outside you can use regular paint after coating it with Leak Seal. Leak Seal is designed to be able to painted directly on galvanized metal unlike most paints. So let's get started on how you do this!



Things you will need:
- Leak Seal
- Outdoor Paint in color of your choosing
- Comfort Grip
- Painter's Tape
- Measuring Tape

Step 1. Prep your surface. Per Leak Seal, you don't need to do anything special to prep the surface of the galvanized metal. They do recommend that you wipe it down and make sure there isn't any dust or dirty on the surface.

Step 2. Spray on the Leak Seal. We suggest getting a comfort grip for your cans as your hands will get worn out from pressing the nozzle on all the cans. The inside of your pool will take about 3 layers of the spray if you want an opaque color. You have to wait 30 minutes+ between each coat, but make sure you read the directions on your can and follow accordingly.Once you have all the coats you'd like on there, you have to let the coating cure for 24 hours.

Step 3. After the Leak Seal has cured for 24 hours, add your paint color. We coated the outside with white paint before painting on the stripes.

Step 4. Measure out the stripes and tape them off.

We decided that we wanted the stripes to be 10 inches wide each, so I first made a mark around the top of the pool every 10 inches. I then started taping in the back of the pool. There would end up being one smaller stripe and we wanted that to be hidden! Alternate taping two pieces of tape on the insides of the 10 inch markings and then 2 pieces on the outside of the markings. It should look like there are smaller stripes, but these are the ones you don't paint.

Step 5. Paint the stripes! Brushing the paint on will feel a little strange on the rubber layer, but this is right.

And the moment you've been waiting for... revealing those beautiful clean stripes! Make sure you peel the tape off once the paint is dry to the touch, which doesn't take too long. If you leave the tape on for days, the paint can peel off with the tape.

Let the paint cure before moving your pool or cutting the holes for the pool pump. We messed up the paint a little because we didn't wait. Luckily, it's in a place where no one will see!

Once the paint is cured, you are good to fill up the pool! If you need to know how to DIY your own stock tank pool, we have a blog post with all the steps and details. You can read that here!

Go see how Hunter styled her pool (and her cute dogs who also love the pool) over on her blog here! (**The photo of Hunter is by Cameron Premo.)

And check out our latest video where we take you behind the scenes of us painting and setting up their pool!

**You will notice that we painted the inside of Hunter's pool. At this time we do not recommend that since Leak Seal now does not recommend using this paint in areas where it will have prolonged contact with water. So we only recommend using Leak Seal on the outside of the pool.**

10 comments

  1. Thank you for posting all the great info! I'm really curious about your decision to go with the spray leak seal vs the kind you paint on. Did you choose spray because it came in white or do you think the spray stuff is easier to apply? Thanks!!

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    1. The spray is what works best! I've seen multiple use the paint on kind and it started immediately peeling off. We did not have that experience.

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  2. I saw in your other post that you used 21 cans just for the inside. How many did you use this time for the inside and out?

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    1. We actually only used 24! We used less coats on the outside than we did on the inside and they were happy with one less coat than we did before on our pool. Since we were painting on top of the leak seal on the outside, it really only needed two coats.

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  3. hi there. given this was a new stock tank pool (vs older one that had already rusted and was sanded), did you do any prepping on the inside before using the rust-oleum rubber sealant? (did you wash with soapy water? vinegar? sand down the surface inside?) or did you just start spraying? thanks.

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  5. I just ordered my stock tank and Leak Seal! Now I am on to the difficult decision of saltwater or chlorine. I am leaning towards saltwater because I have heard it is less maintenance. Do you have any idea how the rubber would hold up with a saltwater filtration system?

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  6. Hi Getting a stock tank this week I was wondering what size you tank is. Would you recommend the plastic or the galvanized?

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  7. Do you still recommend using the leak seal on the outside? I know it's no longer recommended on the inside of the tank

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  8. Epoxy Pool Paints Epoxy paints are a popular choice as they are the most durable option and are solvent-based paints. That means they aren't affected by chemicals, scrapes, stains, etc. That's what I'm planning on using for the inside of the tank.

    We have an inground pool, but got the stock tank to use as a hot tub here in Cali. For what it's worth, our pool is a salt pool, but honestly, the salt just creates chlorine, so rust in the hot tub would still occur. I would never go thru that kind of expense for a stock tank.

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