Water Tank Level Automation for an Off-Grid Farm

The problem

A working farm we support runs several water storage tanks that feed livestock troughs and irrigation lines. Levels were checked by walking out to each tank and reading a sight gauge, and the pump that refilled the main tank was controlled by a single mechanical float switch. When the float stuck, the pump either ran dry or overflowed the tank, and nobody knew until someone noticed.

What we built

We installed submersible pressure sensors in each tank and wired them into the site's existing network alongside the pump controller. Everything reports into ControlBird, the automation platform we build and operate ourselves:

• Tank levels are sampled continuously and held in the live entity tree, so any level anywhere on the property is one query away.
• The pump now runs on level thresholds instead of a single float switch, with a hard cutoff if a sensor stops reporting rather than assuming full or empty.
• Low-level and sensor-fault conditions trigger an alert to the property manager's phone, well before a trough runs dry.
• A rolling history of every tank's level is recorded automatically, which turned out to be useful for spotting a slow leak in one of the supply lines within the first month.

Result

The float switch is still there as a hard mechanical backstop, but it no longer does the daily work. Manual tank checks went from a twice-daily walk to an as-needed check when an alert fires, and the leak would likely have gone unnoticed for a full season without the level history to compare against.