Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Graham and Ashkahn got cornered at Rise with a question from one of the attendees, a float center owner named Gina. And even though the event is over, it’d be a shame to not share this episode. They answer all her questions and concerns about municipal water systems and the levels of filtration that should be done when using water straight from the tap (which probably almost everybody does), they also talk about what you really need to worry about in your tap water.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Perfect.
Ashkahn: I agree.
Graham: Alright so I am Graham.
Ashkahn: And I am Ashkahn.
Graham: We are here with a guest today.
Gina: Hi I’m Gina and I got a question for you guys about water quality after speaking with Jake. In our area we have very high levels of Chlorine. When you are ready to drink your water out of the tap you can smell the levels of Chlorine, and there’s a lot of Iron and it’s very hard.
So we were always thinking about using a filter before filling our tanks, but I don’t know if that’s gonna be enough so I was gonna ask you about water testing. What you would recommend in terms of testing your water to see if it’s okay to use tap water or you should use alternate methods?
Ashkahn: Maybe before we jump into that we should explain why Gina is even here with us in person right now.
Graham: So we are at the Rise Float Gathering over in St. Louis which is another float event when we don’t run which is a pleasure every single year to attend. Yeah we’re doing some live podcasting from there so if you hear any noise in the background, or if our intro seems like we only did it in one take. This is why. We also have Mr. Jake Marty here on the podcast as well with us.
Jake: Hey guys. St. Louis.
Ashkahn: Extra bonus information coming out. Jake’s really the only one that knows anything about it and its just its probably that’s why we don’t usually let him come on the podcast. We’re really embarrassed so it’s just the two of us.
Gina: And this one in plan, he didn’t know I was gonna ask this question.
Jake: It’s real like, a little exciting yeah.
Ashkahn: So what should you do to filter your water? How important is it to filter your water that you’re water that you’re putting into your full tanks?
Graham: Also know I was actually in a while. A lot of Iron levels, , Manganese, and stuff like that.
Ashkahn: Yup! So here’s an interesting thing about Chlorine, specifically as you were talking about those levels in the water, is that, even if you have high levels of Chlorine in your tap water, which evens the levels of Chlorine. The highest levels of Chlorine that could come in tap water do not approach the highest levels of Chlorine you’ll find like in a pool or a hot tub. Chlorine in pools and hot tubs, a lot of states have maximum set to eight or ten parts per millimeter. And if you have a lot of Chlorine on your drinking water, you’re probable talking like one or two parts. So you’re still decent threshold away from that.
Jake: But even if you have high levels of Chlorine in your float tank, or in your tap water that you are using to fill your float tank. It’s probably not gonna stick around that long. The whole pool has constantly be dosing in Chlorine into their system because it’s continuously getting used up by people swimming in there and stuff like that.
Ashkahn: So of all the things to be concerned about in terms of long term effects of what’s in your source water. What’s going in on your float tank? That might be not great for the very beginning. You might add some combined Chlorine and a few things like that but that’s not gonna be like a long term. You know I always have a bunch of Chlorine in your float tank `cause you filled it up with tap water that has enough Chlorine in it.
Graham: And when you fill the tank in here, you’re really only putting you know.
Ashkahn: Small.
Graham: A little bit.
Ashkahn: It’s everything else too. It kinda comes along with it and it’s being the problem. I mean really like we recommend, everyone should filter every drop of water going into-
Gina: Right!
Ashkahn: Their float tank, at the very least, every time. Really like our ideal set-up, I mean it float on if we could have it. We’d have a point of filtration, where right there, as the source going into the building. It’s just being filtered so that everything kinda of going into the whole building, is filtered.
Graham: It’s a little stressed on all the idea, like washing filtered water.
Jake: You can get a manifold.
Ashkahn: Yeah yeah. Just toilet in water and everything else on yeah yeah!
I mean the interesting thing is there’s a lot of different levels of water filtration. You can get like an RV filter that just is used for getting out heavy metals, things like that. From the water. Those are usually the biggest problems are hidden. It’s usually high metal content in the water because then when you do, when you add oxidizers, or if or whatever various treatment someone is using, that’s what could sometimes make your float tank bright, turn bright orange or start to like create stains and stuff like that. It’s typically the metal or mineral content much more than this yeah level forms.
Graham: Do you have a lot of special water or something like that. We have a lot of iron. We actually came across a float center recently.
Jake: Yeah! Just a week ago.
Graham: Yeah! Just a week ago. And there was having so much trouble with iron in their water. It actually start filling their float tanks with bottled water, distilled water.
Jake: Really? I didn’t know that.
Graham: Why do you have thousands of thousands of gallons of bottled water?
Ashkahn: Wow! Crazy! Well, that’s really extreme.
Jake: I actually getting full on distilled waters. Both expensive and pretty extreme.
Graham: A little while yeah.
Ashkahn: In terms of sanitation purposes, most of the time, when your talking, at least in the pool and spa worlds or sort of things, they usually just fill in their city’s water.
Jake: Yeah they are not doing anything, particularly crazy when you’re filling things up.
Ashkahn: And there’s various levels of filtration you can get and there’s obviously things way beyond this filterable we are talking about. Right? When you’re thinking like Silicon chips for computers or something. You’re using like extremely, extremely purified water.
Gina: Right
Jake: So where we fall on that structure, and what should we be really looking is purification and filtration of water.
Ashkahn: In my opinion is a little bit, closer to you, just regular tap water than what is extreme filtration. Like it’s nice to have one layer of something you can filter out heavy metals and things like that. It’s pretty easy to add on that level of filtration and then pretty extreme beyond that. I think it’s probably not usually necessary.
Jake: And a lot of the things personally you wanna filter out for full tanks are just what filters are tackling as like their RV filters, like regular point of entry filters, whatever you are attaching to your house. It’s also gonna wanna take out the heavy metals and it also strip out a lot of the Chlorine and Bromine that has been added to. But, there’s a lot of them, they’re really like, good at giving out even the smaller molecules that are in there, which is nice. So, like nothing we want to do I guess. Our business. You really need to wanting water that is in the public area or anything.
Ashkahn: Cities can be really different, for sure. The cities across the United States or on the world are also offer different materials. They use with their piping to get the water to you. Obviously, there are things like Flint, Michigan. You know there are these cases out there where you can’t just like exactly be totally happy with the tap water you’re getting. How old the infrastructure is for getting water around places. Even places, like where one might have scares with Cryptosporidium from their drinking water in the past. Then, like the city or the state is making them redo their water in usable drinking water systems. Update their water standards, things like that.
Jake: So, it’s worthwhile looking into. It’s probably slight less of a concern. You may think. And there are like case totally like city reports where they tell you like, where do you get your water from? What are threshold for levels are? What are they testing? They were testing for like parts for. It’s usually when you’re looking at levels of things like cryptosporidium or stuff like that. Way smaller than that. Testing for them and we are looking for full tanks. And it’s good to know the very least. That was kind of interesting.
Graham: I mean often, float tank water is cleaner than tap water.
Ashkahn: Yeah I wouldn’t drink it.
Gina: Now I’ve forgotten about the reports, so that’s the first place I’m gonna go. And then, do a little test, sample now that I know that what kind of salts I am using and I am going to start playing around with it.
Ashkahn: Great
Gina: Very cool. Thank you.
Ashkahn: Alright! Does that answer your question or ?
Gina: It does! I’m sure I have follow-ups but I’ll do it all later. Thank you so much! That was awesome!
Ashkahn: You sort of say things. We would assume someone would answer someone’s questions so yeah it was great. Thank you Gina.
Gina: So a lot of information. Thank you!
Ashkahn: Thank you!
Gina: Thanks guys!
Ashkahn: For those out there listening, thanks for listening. If you have more questions for us, you can just fly over to St. Louis and come to Rise-float gathering
Jake: If you’re already here, just tackle one of use. We are the guys in robes
Ashkahn: Yeah
Jake: And yeah, we’ll talk to you soon.
Ashkahn: Yeah! Have a good one.
Recent Podcast Episodes
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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
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How do you Talk about Psychedelics? – DSP 303
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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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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.
