Privacy Policy
We respect that your reef setup is personal. Here's exactly what we do with the data you give us, in plain language. TankSensei is operated by Printed Reef Inc.
1. What we collect
When you create an account:
- Email address (for sign-in + maintenance notifications)
- Password if you use one — hashed with bcrypt; we never see the plaintext
When you use the app:
- Tank details (name, volume, livestock, equipment, photos you upload)
- Test readings (alk, Ca, Mg, nitrate, phosphate, salinity, etc.)
- Tasks, supplies, dose events you log
- Sessions (which device you're signed in on)
- Mobile phone number — only if you opt in to SMS alerts (Account → Notifications). We store the number and a timestamp of your consent.
- Push notification subscriptions — if you turn on notifications, your browser gives us a subscription address to deliver them to
- Location — only if you use Near You. The location you share (your device's GPS, or a ZIP code or city you type) is used to find nearby stores, clubs and events, and is remembered on your own device so you don't have to enter it again. Places, events and photos you add to Near You are shared with other users.
- Anything you choose to send us: feedback, ICP report text you submit for a lab we don't support yet, and photos you submit to the shared livestock catalogue
If you use a PrintedReef display or connect a controller:
- Device data — the display's identifier (derived from its network hardware address), device type, firmware version, when it was last online, and the readings it sends
- CoralVue HYDROS — if you connect your HYDROS account, we store your HYDROS sign-in encrypted, and receive your controllers' readings and settings from HYDROS
- Neptune Apex readings a display polls on your local network and forwards to us
Automatically, when you use the Service:
- Server logs — IP address, browser type and the pages or API calls requested, kept for security and troubleshooting and deleted on a rolling basis by our hosting provider
- When a new account is created, its email, IP address and browser type are sent to our team by email so we can spot abuse
When you visit our landing page:
- Page views, anonymous device class (mobile/desktop), referrer
- Your IP is hashed with a per-server salt before storage — we never store raw IPs from anonymous visitors
2. Why we collect it
To make the app work. Test readings drive the Sensei Score. Livestock data drives the species fit checker. Photos let you see your tank's progression over time. The hashed visit data tells us whether the landing page is reaching people.
3. What we share with third parties
We don't sell your data or share it for advertising. We use these service providers to run TankSensei, and each receives only what it needs for its job:
- Railway — hosts the app and its database, so it stores all the data described above on our behalf.
- Backup storage — an S3-compatible cloud storage provider holds our database and file backups.
- Anthropic (Claude AI) — when Sensei generates a narrative, livestock advice, or dose commentary, or reads a photo you upload (a test result, a coral to identify, or a tank photo to compare), the relevant tank data and that photo are sent to their API with a hashed version of your user id (not your email). See Anthropic's privacy policy.
- Resend — used to send magic-link sign-in emails and notification emails. They see your email address.
- Telnyx — used to deliver SMS text alerts to the mobile number you opt in with. They process your number solely to send those messages.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS IoT) — carries the connection between PrintedReef displays and TankSensei: readings from the display, and your tank data sent back to it.
- CoralVue HYDROS — only if you connect it. We sign in to HYDROS with the credentials you gave us to fetch your controllers' data.
- Push notification services — push alerts are delivered through your browser's or phone's push service (for example Apple, Google or Mozilla), which receives the notification to pass on to your device.
- OpenStreetMap — when you type an address or ZIP code in Near You, our server looks it up with OpenStreetMap's geocoder.
We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect people's safety or our rights, or to a buyer if Printed Reef Inc. is sold or merged, in which case this policy continues to apply to your data.
SMS / text message alerts
If you opt in (Account → Notifications → Text message), TankSensei sends you critical, time-sensitive tank alerts by SMS — e.g. a chemistry parameter out of safe range, a skimmer overflow, or a monitoring device offline. These are transactional notifications only; we never send marketing texts. Message frequency varies with your tank's activity. Message and data rates may apply.
You consent by entering your number and tapping Confirm. You can opt out any time by replying STOP to a message, or by turning SMS off in Notifications; reply HELP for help. Consent is not required to use TankSensei and is not a condition of any purchase.
No mobile information — your phone number or your SMS opt-in/consent — is ever shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. The only third party that receives your number is our messaging carrier (Telnyx), solely to deliver the alerts you asked for.
We do not use:
- verifiedGoogle Analytics, Mixpanel, Hotjar, or any third-party analytics
- verifiedFacebook/Twitter/etc. tracking pixels
- verifiedCross-site fingerprinting
- verifiedAd networks
You can verify this yourself: open browser devtools on tanksensei.com and watch the network
tab. Apart from our own domain, your browser loads fonts from Google Fonts
(fonts.googleapis.com), species photos in the livestock catalogue from
Wikimedia and iNaturalist, and map tiles on the Near You page from OpenStreetMap. Like any
website, those services see your IP address when your browser requests from them; none of
them is used for tracking or advertising.
4. Cookies
- A session cookie for signed-in users (HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Lax)
- A separate admin cookie for site admin login (HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Lax)
- A referral cookie, only if you arrive through a friend's invite link, so we can credit the invite when you sign up. It holds the invite code and expires after 30 days.
The app also keeps your preferences (theme, Home layout, saved Near You location) in your browser's local storage. That stays on your device.
No third-party cookies. No tracking pixels. No browser fingerprinting.
5. AI spend tracking
Every AI call (Sensei narrative, livestock advice, dose advice) is recorded in our internal
ai_usage table with your user id, the feature it was for, token counts, and
cost. This drives per-user spending caps so a compromised account can't burn unbounded AI
cost. The contents of the AI request and response are not stored — only the
metadata.
6. Your rights
You can:
- Export everything any time from settings (JSON dump of every reading, task, photo, livestock entry)
- Delete your account any time — data goes within 30 days. Copies in our backups roll off as those backups expire, within about 8 weeks. Content you shared publicly may stay where removing it would break a shared listing.
- Ask what we have on you — email [email protected]
- Correct anything that's wrong — most things you can edit yourself; for anything else, email us
These apply regardless of where you live. We do this not because GDPR/CCPA says so, but because it's the right way to run a tool that touches your hobby.
7. Security
- Passwords are hashed with bcrypt cost 10
- Sessions use HttpOnly Secure SameSite=Lax cookies
- Magic-link tokens are single-use and expire in 15 minutes
- All connections are TLS
- AI API calls are guarded by per-user spend caps + a global monthly cap + a kill switch
We're a small team. If we have a security incident affecting your data, we'll tell you within 72 hours of discovering it.
8. Age
You must be 18 or older to use TankSensei. We don't knowingly collect data from anyone under 18, and we delete it if we learn we have.
9. Changes to this policy
If we change it in a material way, we'll prompt you to re-acknowledge on your next sign-in. The previous version will stay archived in case you want to compare.
10. Contact
Email [email protected] for any privacy question.