Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Graham and Ashkahn finish up their penultimate episode by answering the most important question of all, “how to start a salt tank business?”
They answer this question with the thoroughness and severity it deserves.
Show Resources
An Important Announcement from the Daily Solutions Podcast
If you’d like to sign up to ask a question on our two-hour call-in show, November 29th that’s in two days!) at 3 pm PST, go to floattanksolutions.com/dsplive.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Ashkahn: Okay.
Graham: Wow. We made it.
Ashkahn: This is it.
Graham: We all made it.
Ashkahn: Just barely, some of us.
Graham: Just barely, yeah. What a year, huh?
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: For those of you who’ve just been listening to us every day and started to think in our voices, thanks. We’re here for you.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Our voices will stick around in your thoughts for years to come.
Ashkahn: If this is the first episode you’re listening to-
Graham: Then you can listen to the entire thing in reverse, which might be kinda fun. The intros will get progressively worse over time.
Ashkahn: I don’t know why that’s what your plan would be, but I guess my name’s Ashkahn if you’re just tuning in.
Graham: I’m Graham and this is the 365th day in a row that we’ve been doing this.
Ashkahn: Yeah. We’ve been in this little room for a year now and sliding food under the door.
Graham: I wonder how things have changed in the outside world.
Ashkahn: You guys have flying cars yet?
Graham: You probably have flying cars.
Ashkahn: At this point, they must.
Graham: Yeah. The only other thing we’re doing past this one is a big two-hour live call-in extravaganza.
Ashkahn: Yeah, got a finale coming up.
Graham: Honestly, come join us for it. If you’ve been enjoying this podcast, fulfill our wish and join us to ask us live questions and treat us like a radio call-in show.
Ashkahn: It’s secretly what we’ve wanted this whole time.
Graham: Not so secretly. I think we’ve said it on the air many times.
Ashkahn: It was just really complicated, so we’re going to do it. We’re going to do it for a big finale.
Graham: It’s true. It is taking a lot of tech work to actually figure out how to do a live call-in show that makes sense.
Ashkahn: If you tune in and no one’s able to call in, we’ve failed.
Graham: Yeah, sorry.
Ashkahn: Sorry about that.
Graham: Tune in for the disaster. It’ll be in two days, so … well, not two days from when you’re listening maybe, but-
Ashkahn: Hopefully, yeah. Possibly.
Graham: It’s coming up.
Ashkahn: There’s at least a chance.
Graham: If today’s the 27th, it’s in freaking two days.
Ashkahn: Yeah, two days from now.
Graham: 29th, three to five PM.
Ashkahn: Pacific Time. It’s going to live. There’s going to be video footage of it.
Graham: We’ll be streaming it on Facebook Live. We might be streaming it on YouTube Live, but yeah. We’ll have links on our website, you can go catch it. Pretty much anywhere you follow us, tune in and we’ll have an easy way to join the live call-in show.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: That’s it.
Ashkahn: Got one final question.
Graham: One final question. We’ve saved the best for last, I think. This just came in I think two days ago, it’s kind of a doozy. It is “how to open a salt tank business?” Question mark. Yeah, good question. You’re asking on the right show, that’s for sure. We usually call them float tanks.
Ashkahn: That’s probably the first, number one, I’d say.
Graham: Salt tanks is more something that we used to call them back in the ’80s. Salt tank therapy. Yeah, man, it’s crazy.
Ashkahn: There’s a lot to know, almost 364, 365 individual nuggets of information to know out there about how to open a salt tank business.
Graham: If only there was some podcast that had just finished up a year’s worth of daily recordings that you could tune into.
Ashkahn: That would be cool. That’d probably be a great answer to your question.
Graham: If you know anyone out there who’s doing that, maybe subscribe on iTunes or go watch YouTube videos. Mainly, just get some float tanks and slap them in your room. You’ll be fine.
Ashkahn: There’s not really a lot to know.
Graham: Yeah, when you get down to it, it’s pretty basic.
Ashkahn: You can go in any space, really. There are very few requirements. They pretty much take care of themselves.
Graham: You can run the entire thing by yourself. I’d say max nine tanks should be fine. Plenty of family time on top of it.
Ashkahn: Customers, they just come. If you build it, they will come. It’s easy.
Graham: It’s one of those Field of Dreams kind of industries out there.
Ashkahn: It’s just easy money. You should really be interested in opening a business if you’re looking for easy money and you don’t really care that much about floating or whatever these salt boxes are.
Graham: If you like money, probably above most other things in life, boy you’ve found the right industry. The salt tank industry is really lucrative.
Ashkahn: You’re going to deal with some annoying customers and put up with that, but …
Graham: Yeah, kind of annoying industry podcast hosts to listen to. Yeah, good luck. That was a good question. Yeah, so I think that pretty much closes out that one. I did want to spend some extra time on the episode, though, just saying how grateful we are for the chance to be able to do and grateful to work in an industry that supports us and gives us the time to share the information that we’ve learned with everyone. Thanks for tuning in. It honestly means a lot and we would’ve stopped a lot sooner if we didn’t have an audience out there.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s been super cool. It’s been nice to hear from you guys and hear the people are listening and enjoying it. Thanks for sending in questions. It’s been fun to get all these questions coming in.
Graham: Thanks for letting us mock them and not getting angry at us, or if you’re angry, keeping it secret and not telling us.
Ashkahn: Sorry if we’ve made any enemies in this process.
Graham: Hopefully we’ve made more friends. Yeah, and you’re amongst them so next birthday party, you’re all invited.
Ashkahn: Just everyone, right? Just wrap your arms around yourself right now. Everybody out there. We’re going to have a collective group hug.
Graham: I’m doing it right now in the studio.
Ashkahn: We’re doing it together. Just picture all of us hugging each other.
Graham: Giant float hug.
Ashkahn: Yeah, nice.
Graham: This is a phenomenal industry and I’m really happy to be here and yeah, again from the depths of whatever sort of heart that I have, thank you all.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s been cool. It’s been fun to go on this float tank journey and for this guy wondering about these salt boxes, I mean, good luck. I don’t know what you’re going to do, to be honest.
Graham: Just a little more research. Just a little more research.
Ashkahn: Probably, yeah. You might need to look into it a tiny bit more.
Graham: All of you aspiring float tank center owners out there too. Good luck. We’re still around. Float tank solutions isn’t going anywhere. Send us your questions when you get lost and need a guiding light out there in the deep seas of flotation. We’re there.
Ashkahn: Alright. I’ll be your wingman. We love you guys.
Graham: We do. Yeah, we love you. Yeah, hopefully, see you in just a couple days. November 29th.
Ashkahn: That’s right. That’s right. Three to five.
Graham: That nailed it is. It is the 29th. Pacific Time. November 29th, three to five PM. See you all there.
Ashkahn: This is Ashkahn signing off.
Graham: This is Graham, also signing off.
Ashkahn: Both of us signing off.
Graham: Talk to you, not tomorrow, I guess.
Ashkahn: No, no. Maybe never again. Oh, two days from now.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: This is us signing off.
Graham: Thanks again, everyone.
Ashkahn: Thanks. Just sign off here. Signing off.
Recent Podcast Episodes
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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.
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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.
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Free Floats for Teachers – DSP 301
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The guys break it down and address some of the concerns any float center may have about running a program like this.
How to Help Float Research – DSP 300
With the push from Justin Feinstein at LIBR to get more float centers involved in research, many float center owners are chomping at the bit to push studies forward on the benefits of floating. But where do you start and how do you make it happen?
Graham and Ashkahn discuss this idea and how to do research right, as well as some of the things that might be helpful OR harmful to the world of floating in the eyes of the scientific community. There’s a lot of nuanced things to know about proper research and if you go in overzealous without considering how established science is done, it can harm the reputation of the practice.
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.
