How to fix cloudy lava water

[Daniel Buus]

Hi guys and girls :-)

First post here, I signed up to share this as it blew my mind. I did a search for "cloudy" in this forum, and the posts I opened talked about replacing the water, so there's a chance this will blow your minds, too. 

I have a huge "Tintin rocket" type Mathmos floor lamp (discontinued, AFAICT), and its contents have been cloudy for years. It's annoyed me, especially since I actually bought a replacement bottle after it was knocked over, and it felt like the contents turned cloudy pretty quickly afterwards. 

I don't have a washing machine and the laundrette has closed, so I'm currently washing by hand. This last batch was a bunch of bed linen, and I was trying to make it dry a little quicker, so over a period of about four days, I constantly had either a duvee cover or a mattress cover folded a few times, and then lain across the lava lamp, because it obviously gives off quite a bit of heat. 

I remember thinking that I hoped it wouldn't cause the lamp to overheat, but then dismissed it, as the room itself was quite chill on account of the windows being ajar so humidity wouldn't build up. But the real surprise came when I removed the last piece of linen: The lava water has become clear again, and it looks brand-new, quite fantastic.

It seems like the lamp getting warmer than usual has magically made the lava consume any impurities that have leaked into the surrounding water. If I were to try to replicate it  I would put it in a room with the heat turned off, ambient ~10C, turn the lamp on to max, and place a folded bed linen on top, covering the lamp's bottle part completely, and then have a peek inside every day. I don't know if the room temp matters, or if the linen should also be wet and cold to exactly mimick what actually happened in my room. I had four pieces of linen, all washed by hand and therefore very moist. The first one came on the lamp immediately, the rest were hung semi-folded in front of windows, not drying much (winter, cold out), and then one-by-one, one per day, taken down and put on top of the lamp to get the moisture out. Maybe it's important they be moist and cold, maybe not.

If you have a cloudy (Mathmos) lamp, and you try this out, please let me know the results! 

Cheers, and HTH, 

Daniel

[Mr MaGoo]

Lucky the globe did not pop with the temp difference between the lamp and the damp laundry, unless the lamp lamp warmed from cold with the damp laundry.  jmho.  Welcome to the site and good luck with you Tintin Rocket, aka: think you referring to a Lunar lava lamp?  Have fun!

[Daniel Buus]

Thank you :-)

Yes, you're right, it's the Lunar. And no, it wasn't warming up from cold, I keep it on all through winter non-stop  Maybe that's why it became cloudy in the first place :-D

I should add, though, that it's using an unoriginal 100W bulb, and that it wasn't at max through the "ordeal," more like at 75%.

Cheers!