Leaving a tank unattended for a week – DSP 93

Float tanks are like giant salty babies sometimes. Between water sanitation, temperature control, and filtration…they require a lot of attention and care, and even when you do things perfectly they can still make giant salty messes everywhere. So how do you leave your baby alone for a week? How do you prepare for that? Unlike a human baby, you can take your float tank with you (or at least it’s unlikely).

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

Graham: Today’s question is, “my workplace is shutting down for about a week. What do I do with my float pod over this time?” … I say just throw a customer in, and see how long they can last.

Ashkahn: Tell them it’s a normal 60 minute float.

Graham: Then, leave. Lock the door. There are some preparations, right?

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: What happens if we do nothing?

Ashkahn: Pandemonium. Chaos.

Graham: You have cats and dogs living together.

Ashkahn: You’re mostly worried about, I’d say, two things. One is your sanitation.

Graham: I thought you were going to say sanity.

Ashkahn: One is your sanitation, and the other one is salt crystallization.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: Those are the two big things that are going to be uh-ohs for you, if you just leave a float tank for a week. Depends on the float tank, right?

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: What can happen is, basically, your salt water is at a certain temperature. If it falls below that temperature, then the saturation point of your solution will be hit. You’ll just have salt starting to crystallize in the water.

Graham: Right. Because, our float tanks keep our salt dissolved at that temperature, at that concentration.

Ashkahn: Right, right.

Graham: If you change either of those, if the concentration goes up, if the temperature goes down, all of a sudden, that crystallization point changes. That’s what going on here.

Ashkahn: You can start growing salt crystals. Most of the time, your float tank is heated. It’s got some sort of heating pad, some system so that the tub itself is heated. That would probably be fine, temperature wise, if you were to leave it for a week.

Graham: But, your pipes and your pump usually aren’t affected by the heat going into the water. You need some way to be able to cycle the water that’s in your pipes and in your pump back into the tank, so that could be heated, as well.

Ashkahn: Otherwise, all the water in the pipes and in the pump will slowly start to crystallize. Literally, you’ll just have chunks of salt crystals in your pipes, and specifically around the impeller in your pump, so that it can’t spin. It won’t actually be able to work.

Graham: Hopefully, this will never happen to you, but it’s also a little bit of an initiation.

Ashkahn: It’s happened to us multiple times. We know about it, and we keep screwing it up.

This is really to say, though, that there are float tanks out there that have safety guards in place for this. There’s a lot of float tanks that, in their controller, will just have some rule that says, “If the pump hasn’t been run for six hours, it’s just going to kick on and do a cycle by itself.” That’s to stop this problem from happening.

The tank itself is being heated and the water is circulating every so often. That stops anything from dropping the temperature too much that it gets to the point of solidifying.

Graham: Other ones, like reservoir systems, that kick all the water back into the reservoir and keep that on a tiny cycle, or something like that, can do that, too.

Ashkahn: Those are heated.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: The most low tech version is just to go in every day, and run the pump for 10 minutes, and go home. Usually, that’s what we do. We’re closed so infrequently, on Thanksgiving and on Christmas. Literally, there’s always just one employee who is just like, “Oh, I’ll stop by and run the pumps.”

Graham: Because, the second most low tech solution is automatic and not that hard, which is really funny. It still doesn’t make sense for us to go that high, which is just going down to Radio Shack, basically, and getting a little outlet timer. You can just set that to turn on and be able to run your pump on a regular basis.

Ashkahn: If you have the electrical set up correctly. You don’t want to mess too much with-

Graham: Yeah. If you have it on an auto-on kind of thing, do some little adjustments.

Ashkahn: And, it works with your GFCI, and your float tank’s not wired a weird way.

Graham: Super easy.

Ashkahn: As long as the electrical safety is still regarded. There are smart plug, and smart switches, and things you can control from your phone to turn on and off. Things you can put on timers. There’s all sorts of technology for stuff like that now.

Graham: I know a fair amount of centers who, especially are occasionally closed for two or three days at a time, or something like that. A little more regularly. Who, that is absolutely what they do. They have some automated switch or timer system. That’s how they make sure they don’t have to-

Ashkahn: Again, just make sure you’re doing this so you don’t just plug a timer power strip in, or something. You don’t want to have power strips, and stuff like that. As long as electrical safety is in there.

Yeah. There’s a range of solutions for them. None of them are really that difficult. Some float tanks just come with that problem solved already. Again, worst case scenario, going in every day and turning it on is not really that big of a deal. That’s one side of it.

The other side is, actually, pretty much the same thing. If your water just sits stagnant like that for a long time, the sanitation can get a little bit out of hand.

Graham: Even though there’s no one floating in it. Even though you had dosed it beforehand. If you have UV, it’s running through the system, at least one cycle every six hours or something.

Ashkahn: It’s basically for that. Depends on what you’re doing to sanitize. If you’re focusing a lot on UV and you’re not running the filtration system, then none of it’s being affected by UV, right?

Same thing for things that you’re dosing, like chlorine or if you’re adding hydrogen peroxide with your UV. Those levels will go down over time. Even if no one’s floating. If they’re catching the residuals of whatever else. If you just leave for a week, and those things hit zero on day one, then all the sudden, those levels are gone in your system. Basically, that.

Graham: We like to kick up the notch a little bit when we’re about to go on some kind of break. Or, when we know that the shop’s going to be closed down for a while.

Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s the same thing, though. You want to keep running the system, basically, in some frequency to make sure things are still operating like they would be were you to be open. You want to have water going past that UV light, or you want to make sure your levels are being maintained.

Again, this comes in to the actual system that you have. Some systems have auto-dosers, so there is a chance that all this could be automated, right? The pump turns on by itself.

Graham: Temperature is maintained.

Ashkahn: Temperature is maintained by itself.

Graham: Sanitation is maintained.

Ashkahn: There’s auto-dosers that are auto-dosing by themselves.

Graham: They take care of your kids.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Just start booking in for you.

Graham: Everything. It’s just …

Ashkahn: Basically, it depends on the equipment you have. Short of that, you just need to fill in manually whichever parts aren’t automated.

Graham: Yeah. Thinking that you could just leave a tank without making plans for either of those things is problematic.

Ashkahn: Yeah. The more this relies on you, the less you can just actually leave for a week, and go to Jamaica and kick it on the beach.

Graham: Is there anything else? I guess, outside of the pod, I just had one other recommendation, as long as we’re on the topic of taking off for a little bit. Which is, update your holiday hours. Or, update your vacation hours for that time on different websites to let people know. Put out something on social media.

Ashkahn: Change your voicemail.

Graham: Yeah, definitely change your voicemail. Things like that can go a really long way. On your scheduling software, have a message at the top or change the message at the top, to say that you’re going to be closed from these dates, and not to expect to reach you.

Ashkahn: What we usually do is, if you have staff or something, we usually have someone still answering voicemails and stuff. What we do is we just set up a Google Voice number. We have our shop phone forward to that Google Voice number. Then that Google Voice number can be accessed anywhere. You can see voicemail just through your email.

You don’t even need to have someone constantly answering the phones or anything. But, someone could check the voicemails once a day. And, just deal with whoever called and left a voicemail, and get back to them. With a little bit of work, you can maintain a nicer customer experience through being closed.

Graham: Yep. Again, just another little side tip about that. Anything else on taking off for a vacation for a week?

Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s a little terrifying.

Graham: But, you deserve it.

Ashkahn: The thought that your pump, you could have a leak or something on day one. And, be a week before you actually were there to notice it is a terrifying thought.

Graham: We normally run our shop 24 hours a day, so even leaving our pumps alone for four hours is something we don’t usually have to think about as much.

Yeah. Get over it. Take breaks for yourself. It’ll probably be fine. You’ll probably be fine.

Ashkahn: What’s the worst that could happen?

Graham: If you have any other questions, go to FloatTankSolutions.com/podcast. Send them in to us. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.

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