Learn best practices for starting and running a float center:
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Something in the world of floating have you stumped?

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Show Highlights

How do people float in float tanks? With salt, of course! Salt water is denser than regular water, so it can hold more weight.

But not all salt is made the same. Find out about what salt to use in your float tanks, how it’s made, and the different options out there for float tanks (plus which salts count as “delicious”) in this episode of the Daily Solutions Podcast.

Show Resources

Listen to Just the Audio

Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: Okay, so today’s question is, what’s the difference between sea salt and float salt. And what the heck is dead sea salt?

Ashkahn: Okay. Interesting. Well I’m gonna go ahead and separate these into the delicious and not delicious categories.

Graham: That’s pretty much how he separates everything in our lives.

Ashkahn: Yeah. That kind of the base one classification … that I go into here. So, if you try to eat float salt, it’s not delicious. That’s the first thing you should really know. Does not taste good. You’ll probably only do it once, and then realize that you never want that in your mouth ever again.

Graham: And dead sea salt too, is also-

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: -in the not delicious category.

Ashkahn: Yeah, that’s not delicious. However … Are we talking about, what was the other thing?

Graham: Sea salt. Regular sea salt. Live sea salt.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Is very delicious. I-

Graham: Especially out of ocean water.

Ashkahn: Yeah, like sometimes I would just take scoops of ocean water and sprinkle it over my breakfast.

Graham: Over your cereal.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Yes. And so it’s because the basic chemical composition of these things is different. Right, they’re not actually … Salts are something that forms that’s a structure of molecules, that forms into this kind of crystal and lattice. But, the molecules that are going into them can be completely different right. You can have chlorine salts as well. In a sense.

Graham: Like, sodium chloride chlorine salts? Like table salt?

Ashkahn: Right, so that’s the first one right, table salt is sodium chloride.

And that again, delicious category. So the sea salt when … Is basically a completely different chemical than what is in the float tank, which is magnesium sulfate. So those are the most specific of these. The dead sea salt is, as far as I know, like a mix of things.

Graham: Right, yeah. So it’s mostly I think, sodium chloride.

And then with just a bunch of other minerals and things that have kind of accumulated and mixed in.

Ashkahn: So, it’s multiple, it’s different percentages of different things. Of different types of salt and I don’t really know much more about the actual breakdown of dead sea salt than that.

Graham: Yeah, nor do I, but for the sake of this conversation, I think that the main question really is about what makes our float tank salt … Why can’t someone just buy a bunch of salt from the store and pour it into a float tank.

Ashkahn: Well, you can. Actually you can buy a bunch of salt from the store and pour it into a float tank.

Graham: We’ve been doing it wrong this entire time?

Ashkahn: Yeah, yeah, and in fact it’d be cheaper. Like I’ve seen 50 pound bags of sodium chloride at Costco for like $10 or something.

And a little piece of float history, that’s actually how it started with float tanks. I mean there was many, many, years of just water, and then when they first-

Graham: So no salt?

Ashkahn: No salt. Zero salt, and when they first started introducing salt into it, in an attempt to make the water more buoyant, they started with sodium chloride. Table salt. And got it up to that kind of same level of saturation and basically just found that it’s … If you had any sort of small cut or abrasion or something like that, it would sting and it just would not stop stinging. And as much as it did help and make you float, it was really uncomfortable to actually be in.

Graham: So that’s essentially the main reason for not doing that. That’s why even if you could get it cheaper, you don’t just wanna go down to the store and use table salt, is because it’s way harsher on people. And those stings are from cuts that you have, which you can really still feel in a float tank very much. Don’t really go away with the table salt, nearly as much. So that’s why people don’t do that.

Ashkahn: The Epsom salt on the other hand, still stings like your not gonna get away from that. But it seems to only sting for a few minutes, maybe two, three, four minutes and then after that it kinda fades away and you’re good to go. So it’s much less intense and you can actually still float as long as you’re willing to. Either being a little bit uncomfortable for a few minutes, or put, if it’s a small enough little scrape or something, some of that petroleum jelly on it and make a little force field around it. And because there’s health benefits associated with the dead sea and floating in it and that sort of has its own lore going along with it …

Just to loop back around to the dead sea salts as well. I think there’s this, “why can’t I fill my float tank with dead sea salt,” is that exact same reason as table salt. Which is, it’s also mainly sodium chloride. It’s also gonna be way harsher on your skin. Just not as pleasant an experience. That said, I do know some float tank centers who sprinkle dead sea salt into their float tanks alongside it. So maybe 10% dead sea salts and the rest, 90% of the salt being magnesium sulfate.

Graham: Yeah, even 10% is much higher than I normally hear. I often hear of people put in like, even just a few cups in or-

Ashkahn: A scoop.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: Yeah, so, that’s also an option. We never played around with it. So I have no idea how that actually turns out functionally. But I kind of can imagine that it actually makes that much of a difference on the perception at least or the abrasion from having it in there.

Graham: Yeah, I would be surprised if you could feel a difference on cuts on your body or anything like that. I dunno if there are actual health benefits or not. I think we’re trying to figure out how much you absorb stuff like that through your skin. So that’s a bit of an unknown.

Ashkahn: Yeah, for any of these two. Eating salt, floating in salt, floating in dead sea salt.

Graham: Well eating salt … I think we know.

Ashkahn: It’s good for you. We know it gets in but, I mean, it’s still like I feel like every year there’s a different argument back about how beneficial or not salt is.

Graham: Yeah, that’s true.

Ashkahn: So, just like the medical world where, in a huge quandary about the benefits of certain things.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: All right, so hopefully that answered your question. And we’ll be here same time tomorrow so, tune back in. Thanks guys.

Graham: Later.

Recent Podcast Episodes

Tank Topics – All About Research

Tank Topics – All About Research

The holidays are a busy time for float centers and it often means lots of new customers asking questions. This means it can be a really great time to brush up on the facts about floating. Fortunately we’ve formed a folio of fantastic studies for you to fancy. Feliz Navidad!

Tank Topics – Handling Difficult Customers

Tank Topics – Handling Difficult Customers

In every service business, there’s a running joke that someone likes that’s usually somehting along the lines of “this job would be great if it weren’t for all the customers!” (*cue laugh track and uproarious applause*), well, the boys have not shied away from talking about the difficult sides of running a shop like ours. We’ve got episodes about handling negative Yelp reviews, customers too intoxicated to float, and even what to do when it’s time to 86 a problematic client. 

Tank Topics – All About Research

The 2019 Float Conference Recap – OSP 09

You can tell this episode was recorded a little while ago, really close to after we all got back from the Conference. The boys are a little tired today, but they still have lots to talk about. 

Grashkahmn share their initial reactions to the Conference now that it’s being run by the industry as a non-profit. This is a nice episode especially if you’re looking for some insights on their behind-the-scenes perspective on this big industry event and how it has changed this year. 

Tank Topics – All About Research

Tank Topics – Health Departments

Something in the world of floating have you stumped? Show Highlights Hooo doggie! This is a big one! This Tank Topic is filled with useful information about what you should know before talking to health...

Tank Topics – All About Research

The Russian Float Conference – OSP 08

Graham and Ashkahn are back to give their recap on the Float Conference. No, not THAT Float Conference, the Russian Float Conference. 

The guys got to go speak at the float event on the other side of the world and are reporting back on what that was like, how their industry is shaping up, and some of the lessons we can learn about their industry over there. 

Additionally, Graham and Ashkahn lied to you. The show notes will not have a puppet show in them. 

Latest Blog Posts

How to Safely Reopen your Float Center

How to Safely Reopen your Float Center

As our communities begin reopening amidst this pandemic, float centers are straddling a line between wanting to run floats and making sure they’re keeping their customers and staff safe. The collective social fatigue and stress are palpable, and it’s apparent to many...

Checklist for Temporarily Closing Your Float Center

Checklist for Temporarily Closing Your Float Center

These are challenging times for all of us, and many float centers (ourselves included) have decided to temporarily shut down to help stop the spread of coronavirus. Our team got together yesterday to figure out what we need to do to put our shop into hibernation mode,...

Can Epsom Salt Kill Coronavirus?

Can Epsom Salt Kill Coronavirus?

NOTE: This article was originally published March 13th, 2020, last updated July 14th, 2020. While we want to make sure this advice is current, it is not definitive. We want to recognize the limitations of advice during a pandemic where information is updated by...