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How To Check Stock Tanks Remotely
Damon Printz of Wyoming got tired of driving 15 miles one way to check livestock waterers in remote pastures. To save time, he developed a remote monitoring system called the Tank Toad.
“It’s a remote stock tank monitor for checking water levels so you can manage your water much more easily,” Printz says. “The device is a box that sits on the tank and texts your phone daily.”
His customers typically attach the Tank Toad to the structure around the tank. The device either has a sonar module that sits above the water or a pressure sensor that goes in the water.
“We use sonar on tanks that aren’t super deep with open tops,” he says. “The pressure sensors are for bigger and taller enclosed tanks.”
In addition to monitoring water line pressure and water levels, the Tank Toad can also remotely control wells and generators.
The water management aspect of the Tank Toad really comes into play when a user has a well and tank separated by a long distance.
“There’s no real way to get any feedback on water levels, so most ranchers have an overflow at the tank itself that often runs continuously,” Printz says. “That means they’re just burning through electricity and water.
“Tank Toad units can communicate with each other,” he says. “You can have one turn on and shut off the well automatically.”
If a producer has a solar well along with a backup generator and that well is falling behind, producers can start the generator remotely with the Tank Toad and get the water going again.
The Tank Toad signal to your phone can run on cellular service, or if it’s in extremely remote areas, the text gets sent to a user’s phone via satellite.
Prinz says there is no need to download an app to use the Tank Toad. “Our intended audience doesn’t care for a lot of fancy logins,” Printz says with a laugh. “We tried to make this as simple as possible.”
The Tank Toad is available on the company’s website and costs $1,800. Farmers also need to choose either satellite service, which is $30 a month, or the cell service plan, which is $100 per year.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Damon Printz, Meadowlark Solutions, 2816 County Road 159, Albin, Wyo. 82050 (ph 801-252-6135; info@tanktoad.com; www.tanktoad.com).


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2022 - Volume #46, Issue #6