Is a Pony Bottle too complicated for a beginner?

[wetb4igetinthewater]

If piece of mind of having extra air is what your after, you can always get a bigger tank if the pony doesn’t work out.

If you have a catastrophic gas loss, like a first stage failing shut (extremely rare I will admit), that doesn't help. Even for buddy diving, i recommend redundant air

 

[johndiver999]

i personally like the fact that you are considering getting a second tank.

i do agree that you should have a good basic skill level before adding one though. good buoyancy, trim, etc etc

as mentioned above, you will also need to make sure the bc you use is capable of slinging it or sidemounting it. don't mount it to the tank. a rear inflate bc or a bp/w would be best as you can shift the gas around in your bc to help offset the weight of the extra tank.

there is a lot of different terminology around our industry. i would not consider a 13cf bottle to be "pony" or "redundant" gas supply. i would consider it to be a "bail out" bottle. and by that i mean it would really only be sufficient (on a deep dive) to either safely make it to your buddy, or to do an emergency solo ascent. but still better than having no extra gas. i used to carry a 6cf. or of you were ding no deeper than say 60 feet it would e more than enough.

but if you want to carry a true redundant gas supply i would consider AT LEAST a 19 cf tank. but it really depends on the type of diving you are doing and how deep you may be.

Can you be more specific about what unique difficulties originate from using a jacket BC and a tank-mounted pony bottle?

Also, you comment about the necessity to "shift gas around" when using a pony bottle is not something i understand. If the OP is talking about a 13 cu-ft pony bottle, the weight (negative buoyancy) of that tank and regulator can't be more than a couple of pounds. Why not just figure the negative weight in water and add another equivalent piece of lead on the belt, harness weightbelt or cam strap to balance? I see no need to try to move air around to account for the potential asymmetric weighting.

it seems like you are making it out to be more difficult than it is.

 

[Scuba Client]

I am new to scuba diving with only a couple dives under my belt. I am a little OCD and tend to pay attention to my gauge more than enjoying the dive as I am always worried about my pressure. I have a 13cf pony bottle. Would being a new diver and having the pony tank connected to my main tank for the piece of mind confuse me and be tougher for me starting out? When I started paramotoring, they recommended not flying with a reserve because it is more likely to accidentally deploy and cause more problems.

Providing you dive with a computer, look at your SPG every 10 minutes. Extend it out to 20 minutes. Work out your Surface Air Consumption. Then do a modest calculation for air consumption. 20 Respiratory Minute Volume x Depth 3 ATA x 30 minutes = litres.
Download US Navy Diving Manual and NOAA Diving Manual 4th edition.

 

[KenGordon]

Only you can make the determination if your skill set is capable of whatever skill you are working on.

A beginner cannot know that. This is partly why there are so many people who say how rubbish their initial training turned out to have been when they see proper divers.

 

[FishWatcher747]

On the topic of jacket BC. On my Aqualung Pro HD it didn't have a Left shoulder D ring. So I added a D ring at the point of the Left shoulder quick release so I could sling a 19 cu ft pony on the left. In other words I stuck a D ring where it was never meant to go and not sure if it was perfectly structurally sound.

Since then I went BPW and put D rings anywhere I want.

 

[Julius SCHMIDT]

Several people have died confusing their back mounted pony regulator with their primary back tank regulator.

Those deceased seem to magically multiply each time this fantastical myth is repeated

Carrying a pony is easy peasy.
I've got an extra 30cf of compressed air, which allows me to draw my main tank reserve lower, thus extending each dive by as much as 500 psi

Ponies are not to be incorporated into ones gas plan as has been mentioned to you on several occasions. How about you just call your pony a stage and stop pushing your particular brand of diving

 

[Divin'Papaw]

Ponies are not to be incorporated into ones gas plan as has been mentioned to you on several occasions. How about you just call your pony a stage and stop pushing your particular brand of diving

Or independent doubles since it’s back mounted. He’s certainly not using it as a pony per any industry standard definition.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

Carrying a pony is easy peasy.

I strap it to my main tank using a universal strap that connects directly to the main tank strap. It's behind me not interfering with my camera, and I've got an extra 30cf of compressed air, which allows me to draw my main tank reserve lower, thus extending each dive by as much as 500 psi, AND I've got the safety of redundancy throughout most of the dive.

When it comes to terms we can’t just make it up. There are industry standard definitions. Yours is not a pony bottle. What you really have there based upon your usage pattern is a kind of independent doubles. The way you use it it’s NOT a pony bottle.

You absolutely can dive however you wish. But be careful about co-opting terms and using them incorrectly. It can cause significant confusion especially for new divers.

 

[MaxTorque]

There is, within recreational diving limits and situations, really only one reason to carry a pony:

When there is a reasonable chance that you will be unable to safely and completely carry out an air sharing scenario with your buddy at any point during your dive plan.


What drives that "reasonable" chance is of course rather varriable, from an un-reliable or simply unknown buddies to diving conditions that might render a long duration close quarters contact difficult (high current on a drift dive for example)

However, as a beginer, it's going to be a lot better on to try to avoid getting to more complex situations such as those mentioned anyway.


One "non" reason to carry a pony is because you are not very good at managing your own air supply. If you can't manage a primary supply, then adding a (small) secondary one is not going to help, it's going to hinder!

The fact the OP says they are checking their SPG very often is GOOD. As a beginer you haven't yet got the feel or experience for how fast you use your air, and you are also going to have a much more variable consumption because your buoyancy and trim will be less refined, and because you are not yet "at home" underwater. I'd say by around OW dive number 20, you should really be mostly "at home" ie not be worrying or thinking continuously about the fact you are under water, and you should by this point be able to start to estimate your consumption. Try it, look at your spg, and think, i'll look in 5min, and i think it will show a reading of "x" and do that and see ho close you are! You'l also start to have a back-catalogue of dives to look up, to say "ah yes, i did a similar dive and i used "x" amount of pressure in "y" minutes". At this point, you need to be very conservative with your basic dive planning,to give yourself room to make some small mistakes, to give your self confidence that a small error is not going to spiral out of control.

Do not use the fact you are carrying an extra cylinder to cloud your judgement or change your conservative planning at this stage of your experience.

So would i recommend a pony to a beginner, no, not really. Far better to increase your plan conservatism and to end the dive or "Go shallow" with a higher reserve air volume in your backgas. There are plenty of really good beginner dives where you drop under say 100 bar, you are already "back at the boat" because you turned the dive conservatively, but you can spend another 20 min just staying at say 5m in close proximity to the boat. Here's if you suddenly notice "oops, i'm down to 50 bar" then there is no drama, simply surface.

 

[rick00001967]

Can you be more specific about what unique difficulties originate from using a jacket BC and a tank-mounted pony bottle?

Also, you comment about the necessity to "shift gas around" when using a pony bottle is not something i understand. If the OP is talking about a 13 cu-ft pony bottle, the weight (negative buoyancy) of that tank and regulator can't be more than a couple of pounds. Why not just figure the negative weight in water and add another equivalent piece of lead on the belt, harness weightbelt or cam strap to balance? I see no need to try to move air around to account for the potential asymmetric weighting.

it seems like you are making it out to be more difficult than it is.

i only commented about making sure the bc used was able to facilitate the use of a slung tank. not all recreational bc's will have the necessary design or hardware to allow this. for example.....some only have plastic shoulder drings, some have no drings,and most do not have a waist dring.

remember it was my suggestion NOT to use a 13cf tank. if the op decides to use one, can rig a 13cf tank, and it does not cause any weighting issues than there is no problem.

but with most slung tanks there obviously will be extra weight on one side when full. when emply (depending on the tank) it may be positive. so there is obviously a weight "shift". with a jacket style recreational bc it may not be possible to move the gas around inside the bladder in order to compensate for that weight shift. with a rear inflate rec bc wing or a bp/w, you can simply roll to one side or the other and allow the gas in the wing to move from one side to the other to compensate for the weight shift.

i don't think my comment made anything sound "difficult". just takes a little practice. but when deciding to add something such as a slung pony, the op needs to know that their current gear may not accomodate it, or may not allow the most effective use.