Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Okay, so this is something that happens a lot, and it can seem like a small thing, but it can be a little confusing when it keeps happening. What’s going on when you float in the same tank and keep drifting to one side? How does that happen? And why is it so consistent? Graham and Ashkahn know what the deal is here and drop some knowledge here on this topic.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is, “is my water out of level? I always float to the same side of my pod. At first I thought it was subtle waves interacting with my symmetry, so I flipped 180 degrees and ended up right back on the same side of the tank.”
Ashkahn: Well … Okay, so water can’t be out of level. It’s naturally leveling. If you put, if you had water in a glass and you tilted your glass in any direction, the top of the water is always going to stay level. It’s liquids.
Graham: Yeah, so physically impossible for your water to be out of level, but I mean I get, so what if it’s, can it affect how waves are generated, or someone’s moving, like the wave machine when they go up on shore, all of a sudden you have cresting little salt waves?
Ashkahn: I’m just thinking on the back of the float tank like generate, like a little wall pushing back and forth, like a wave machine.
Graham: Well you’re kind of the wave generator in this case.
Ashkahn: But the waves would also be level. They’d be on the surface of the water.
Graham: But if it’s tilted to one-
Ashkahn: I don’t know.
Graham: Yeah, I don’t know. Okay, so here’s what I think is going on.
Ashkahn: Here’s what’s happening.
Graham: There are different reasons that you drift to the side of the tank. I do actually think that personal physical asymmetry could very well be one of them, like if your back is really tight, but if you’re turning around and you’re going-
Ashkahn: But that would, you’d have to be like pushing off of something. You contort your body in there.
Graham: Yeah, or just like slightly drifting.
Ashkahn: At the point that you’re still, you can be still in any position and remain still, even if your body was off balance. It’s not going to cause you to drift.
Graham: See I don’t know. When you’re breathing and different things like that, you’re naturally generating small currents inside the water.
Ashkahn: Sure. I just think all that, compared to what we’re about to say is the thing, I think all of this is way, way, way more subtle.
Graham: Okay, what were you … We’ll say what we think it is at the same time.
Ashkahn: Okay.
Graham: All right. Three, two …
Ashkahn: One.
Graham: Okay, I’m just going to do a countdown. Three, two, one. It’s heaters.
Ashkahn: It’s your heaters. It’s probably your heaters is what’s going on here.
Graham: It’s your heaters. You heater is off center or it’s just generating-
Ashkahn: That creates, that can create these kind of like convection currents in the water. If you’re floating in there, and if there’s two heaters in the float tank, or however the heater is set up and installed, the bottom rim, the sides, whatever it is, if those are not on symmetrically, then that’s going to create something that’s going to continuously edge you toward one side of the float tank or the other.
Graham: Yeah, so maybe it’s the physical placement is not quite centered. Maybe if it’s two heaters, one is getting more power than another.
Ashkahn: Or it’s just that the, sometimes two heaters have two separate thermostats and one is reading at a fine temperature and doesn’t think it needs to be turned on, and the other one is reading at a temperature where it does think it needs to be turned on.
Graham: Yup, even if it’s just one solid heater, or built in heating element throughout the tank, that can also just be certain coils and different areas getting hotter than other ones and causing this imbalance too depending on how it’s set up.
Ashkahn: Yeah. My guess is that is probably I think the only thing that would really significantly make you continuously drift to one side of the tank or the other.
Graham: Yup, especially again if it’s the exact same side regardless of orientation or anything else. If you’re always going to the east side of the tank, not like left or right, then I think that’s a good sign that-
Ashkahn: At the point that you’re still, I even think differences in your body and … I don’t know, my breathing pattern I’ve found is not specifically edged me toward anything. For me to really move in the float tank, I have to slightly push off a wall, or in general create some more significant movement.
Graham: See and I’ve talked to people who always go over to the left side of the tank, regardless of whether it’s east or west.
Ashkahn: Of any tank?
Graham: Yes.
Ashkahn: They just always scoot over to the left side?
Graham: Yeah, that’s exactly. I was like, this is the kind of conversation that I had with them.
Ashkahn: Hmm.
Graham: I don’t know.
Ashkahn: I don’t know. All right, well it’s probably the way this person described it.
Graham: Just one of the many things I don’t know about to be fair.
Ashkahn: So check your heaters out. I mean the easiest thing to do is when you’re in the float tank, just put your hands on the bottom or the sides. You’ll be able to feel if the heater is on or not. If you have two heaters, you can put your hands down and you’ll feel one warm and one not. You don’t have to tear your floater tank apart to check this.
Graham: I guess as long as we’re on the subject of heaters and convection currents, it is one reason that I like heaters around the outside of the tank, or even around the inner outside if it’s on the bottom, or something like that. This idea of being able to heat from the sides and push the currents inwards is really a nice idea. As opposed to, on the other side, having one centered heater in the center of the bottom of the tank feels like it’s most likely to generate these currents that hit the top and the center and sort of push off towards the sides in some direction.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s an interesting one. I think there’s pros … I find if the tank’s real big and it has heaters only around the side, I can feel it’s warmer as I get closer to the side of a tank than when I’m in the middle as opposed if the heaters are under it. Then all that heat, hot water, is kind of rising out from right under you, which is nice.
Graham: And there’s the ocean float room that just has the entire tub is built in with a heating element.
Ashkahn: Yeah, like a heating grid thing around the whole thing?
Graham: Yeah, exactly. Just kind of heats evenly around the entire tub, which I think helps with things like that.
Ashkahn: Yeah, but having something, just a single strip of heater right directly under you is I guess typically not what float manufacturers do. Usually they’re doing, if it’s on the bottom, they’re kind of putting them slightly out towards the middle so that it does-
Graham: Yeah, but having two of them or something like that instead of just a single one underneath.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it does kind of like help center you, or if it’s around the edges, then that does a better effect of centering you.
Graham: All right.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: So yeah, water always levels itself.
Ashkahn: That’s the lesson for today.
Graham: All right. If you have any more questions, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Monthly Budget for Float Centers – DSP 305
Graham and Ashkahn break down the real truth about how closely they watch their budget for Float On on a monthly basis.
The truth is… not much. As it turns out, monthly expenses for float centers don’t have huge variations unlike businesses that rely on retail, for example. Graham and Ashkahn explain they developed a sense for what’s within reason.
How to Sign on Float Ambassadors – DSP 304
Float Ambassadors have been with the industry since the beginning, but gained popularity sometime in the last few years. What are ambassadors and how to float centers find them? When they do find them, how do they get them to represent floating?
Graham and Ashkahn share their experiences with the practice of finding float mavens out in the world and the impact they’ve had on Float On.
How do you Talk about Psychedelics? – DSP 303
It’s no secret that the inventor of the float tank, John Lilly, was also an early psychonaut and used the tank for mental exploration in conjunction with LSD. Not everyone in the float community appreciates this shared history and some actively try to distance themselves from it given the taboo nature of psychedelics.
Graham and Ashkahn share their thoughts on psychedelics and floating and how, as a business, they can be completely separated while still being important, as well as explaining why some people might reasonably decide to disassociate from them.
What About 75 Minute Floats? – DSP 302
Most float centers divide on floats offered between 60 or 90 minute floats, but some split the difference right down the middle and offer 75 minutes. Graham and Ashkahn share their thoughts on this tactic, what they see as the pros, cons, and things to consider when implementing it.
Free Floats for Teachers – DSP 301
Graham and Ashkahn give their perspective on the pros and cons of giving free floats away for teachers. Giving out free floats is the Float On way and giving them to a specific group of people who could really use them sounds like a good idea.
The guys break it down and address some of the concerns any float center may have about running a program like this.
Latest Blog Posts
The Basics of Float Tank Sanitation
Some of the most common questions you’ll get as a float center operator involve the cleanliness of the tanks. This post will be an introduction to some of the most commonplace sanitation methods used in float tanks. These are generally either chemicals that go in the water or devices that attach to your filtration system. We’ll be discussing chlorine, bromine, ozone, UV, and hydrogen peroxide, which accounts for the sanitation methods used on nearly every float tank on the market.
Testing and Maintaining Float Tank Water Quality
Editors Note: This is a revision of a past blog post, updated to reflect the most current sanitation methods and standards
In a perfect world, you could just pour water and salt into a float tank and it would stay pure and clean and fresh and salty forever. In the real world, conditions in the water are constantly changing, so keeping your water safe and clean takes a fair amount of vigilance.
This post covers how we maintain basic water quality in the float tank, except for sanitization methods, which will be covered in their own beastly sanitation blog post. Stay tuned for that coming out next week!
Floating, mental health, and wellness
This post will explore the intersection of floating with the concepts, beliefs, and experiences related to mental health and wellness, with a focus on anxiety and depression. I’ll explore my own story as it relates to floating before diving into the current intersections of floating and mental health, with a look at past, current, and potential opportunities for research and personal growth.
Massage, Acupuncture, and Float Tanks… A Chat with Sandra Calm
We’ve seen lots of float centers that aren’t just float centers.
Many have massage, some offer counseling, some have yoga classes next door. Lots of people start out either by incorporating float tanks into a larger business, or with float tanks only being one of many modalities at their center. Being specialists in floating, Float On has not mastered anything else.
So, to help gain insight into this growing aspect of the industry, we contacted our old friend, Sandra Calm. She started up The Float Shoppe here in Portland with her husband and podcast sensation, Dylan Calm, back in 2011. When they first opened, they had just two float tanks, and slowly added acupuncture, massage, counseling, along with two more tanks. Talk about expansion!
She was more than happy to take some time for the industry to help us understand just what it’s like to run a center with multiple services by answering some questions.
