Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
When Graham and Ashkahn get to definitively answer a question, it’s like Christmas. Birds sing and the guys bust out their “Answering a question definitively” dance, which has the added side effect of better crop yields during the coming harvest. It’s an exciting time.
There’s a very straightforward mathematical equation for measuring the weight of salt water based on specific gravity, which is excellent. And useful!
Also, whoever wrote this question needs to contact Graham and Ashkahn ASAP!
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is, “how much does one gallon of Epsom salt saturated water weight? And, can I ever speak to you about an idea that I think would revolutionize the industry if you could help me to dream it possible?”
Ashkahn: That was part of the question?
Graham: Yeah. You wanna just do the first part first or-
Ashkahn: I guess so. Is that where the question ends or do they go into what the idea is?
Graham: No, they just want to know if they can speak to us about their idea.
Ashkahn: Oh, man, okay.
Graham: So, I guess the answer to that is yeah.
Ashkahn: Totally, yeah.
Graham: Definitely, yes. We love hearing ideas.
Ashkahn: I’m excited now. I wish they’d have written the whole thing in there.
Graham: I mean, it could revolutionize the industry.
Ashkahn: I can see how they don’t want us just broadcasting that out there.
Graham: Which I would have because obviously I’ll just read whatever’s in front of me.
Ashkahn: So, yeah, whoever this is, reach out. Get in touch.
Graham: Yeah man. Shoot us another question.
Ashkahn: Yeah, we’ll say it on the podcast. We’ll tell everybody your idea.
Graham: Unless you don’t want us to. In that case, we definitely won’t share it. So, the first part though, how much does one gallon of Epsom salt saturated water weigh? It’s not too hard to figure out.
Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s more than a gallon of water weighs.
Graham: And there you have it. You heard it from us.
Ashkahn: Okay. So, if you guys have other questions, you want to-
Graham: So, fortunately, the conversion with specific gravity of figuring out the weight of something is not the hardest thing in the world. It’s actually pretty simple. Just multiplication problem of you take the specific gravity and multiply it by, say the weight of water, which is 8.344 pounds.
Ashkahn: Per gallon.
Graham: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Per gallon. So, at 1.25 specific gravity, that’s gonna end up being 10.43 pounds per gallon, and around 1.3 specific gravity it’s gonna be about 10.85 pounds per gallon. And keep in mind, this is gonna vary a little bit. Not only on the specific gravity but on the actual temperature of the solution and on the pressure. But that shouldn’t change it too much.
Ashkahn: Those are marginal.
Graham: Yeah. So, just like the specific gravity is 1.25-1.3 it means that the weight of the gallon of salt water is going to be about 25%-30% heavier than a gallon of regular water.
Ashkahn: Okay. Yeah, that’s-
Graham: And send in that idea!
Ashkahn: Back to the important part of your question.
Graham: And pretty clear cut.
Ashkahn: Right.
Graham: Definitely feel free to run a little science experiment yourselves and prove us right or wrong on that.
Ashkahn: This is one of those rare times we actually know-
Graham: We actually know the answer and it’s concrete.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: We’re just gonna make this a really short episode. So, if you have any other questions for us, send them to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
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Latest Blog Posts
Timeline for Opening Up a Float Center
Opening up a float center is a lot like climbing a mountain. Even if you can see the peak, it’s a lot further away than you think, and when you finally get there, the journey and the destination usually end up being different than previously assumed.
In this post we’ll lay out a general process and timeline of what you may encounter on your path, from initial idea to actually operating a center.
Can you have volunteers at your center?
So you’re thinking about using volunteers in your float center?
Before we clarify what a “volunteer” actually means, we’ll first explore why a float center might be considering them in the first place. While it can be a way to provide floats to people who are otherwise unable to pay, the impulse to bring in volunteers can also stem from a desire to get some sort of free labor (later in this post we’ll dive into why you can’t actually do this, but it’s important to recognize that the instinct is understandable, especially when you have someone lined up and willing to work for free).
In addition to a desired boost in overall productivity, it’s also a way to invite more people into your center to experience what you do. Some customers actually want to help out and see what happens behind the scenes at a center.
Floating and Athletics, a Strong Relationship
One of the beautiful things about the float tank is that it serves to rejuvenate the whole person. — the body, mind, heart.
Broadly speaking, it’s a tool for homeostasis, an ideal environment that supports balance, health, and growth. This piece will look specifically at floating and athletics. For anyone who defines themselves as an athlete, or as a general pursuant of athletic endeavors, the float tank can be a powerful asset.
In this post, I’ll discuss individual athletes who float and how to look at this from a marketing perspective. I’ll also discuss past and present research, and share some thoughts on how the relationship between the athletic and floating communities might continue to unfold.
A Skeptic’s Guide to Floating
I think it’s time we addressed the giant metaphorical elephant in the salty metaphorical room — there are lots of exaggerated and untrue claims about the benefits of floating being spread around the industry.
Some are anecdotal, some are only half true, and some are just patently false. Floating has historically had a strong oral tradition tied to it — the practice has survived through word-of-mouth, one passionate floater teaching another everything they know. The unfortunate thing about this is that the information disseminated can’t be reliably tested or shared with others on a broader scale. You can’t use “my buddy Chris” as a source for a health benefit of float tanks in a newspaper article, much less for a research paper.
Now that we’re becoming a bit more mainstream, we thought it would be nice to add some clarity to what we should and shouldn’t be telling people about these difficult-to-understand, saliferous containers.
