Aquarium Diving

[Aquatic Eagle]

Hello all. I am wondering about everyone's opinion on the value of an aquarium dive.

At my aquarium, we usually dive 3-5 times in a shift. Divers have to work to perfect their buoyancy to avoid hitting the structures and for a professional appearance during the shows. There is work towards decreasing your air consumption rate. We also have a lot of interaction with marine animals, sometimes very large and potentially dangerous ones. Depending on the tank that the diver is in, the temperature can be comfortable or in the 50s. While cleaning the larger exhibit, divers are also diving in an overhead and extremely confined space.

While these dives are in a confined environment that is not subjected to weather conditions or deeper depths, there is still plenty of activity and skill work going on to make these dives very valuable to a diver's level of comfort and skill.

I record these dives in a "Scientific Diving" log separate from my normal log. How would these dives qualify when the question of a diver's experience level arises? Let's say that someone has 100 OW dives and 500 aquarium dives similar to the above varying conditions. I think it's a waste for the diver to only be able to claim that he has 100 dives but I also understand that answering with "600 dives" could be misleading. How would you answer this question?

 

[soonerwink]

Your log is for your personel experience and choice. That being said, when I did my divemaster my instructor asked to see my log, and wouldn't count my aquarium dives. I had about 150 dives logged and about 10 were aquarium dives. I only logged the ones I wanted to remember amount of weight and wetsuits I wore in the differant tanks. I had qiut logging my dives except for any new ones that I wanted to remember particulars about. My instuctor said I should still log all my dives though.

 

[ohmdiver]

Your log , your rules. But I would assume that the aquirium dives wouldn't count because they are not an "Open Water" dive, they are more like pool dives. There has to be some definition somewhere.

 

[Aquatic Eagle]

I know the rules and definition of a "scuba dive". I also understand that these aquarium dives wouldn't count towards professional or technical certification. My question is different though. If a diver came to you and asked you to evaluate their experience and they showed you a log with say, 50 OW dives and 200 aquarium dives, what would you think? Obviously you would want to see them in the water but just going on their log, how would you qualify their log?

 

[Divrdug]

I have been diving in small ponds before and I think that most people would consider that to be open water diving, right? What if the aquarium happens to be larger than the pond ...and deeper? Maybe its the fact that you're surrounded by mother earth and not glass that makes the difference

 

[Aquatic Eagle]

I have been diving in small ponds before and I think that most people would consider that to be open water diving, right? What if the aquarium happens to be larger than the pond ...and deeper? Maybe its the fact that you're surrounded by mother earth and not glass that makes the difference

Yes I understand that it's not in natural conditions, as I stated above. My point is that even though these dives are protected from weather and other unpredictable conditions, they are still quality dives because of the skill practice that the diver goes through. I know some of the divers that I work with that got certified and had no dive experience beyond that before they got hired as aquarium divers. Now after working there for a year or so and having a couple hundred aquarium dives, they are more comfortable in the water and have better breathing control and buoyancy skills than many divers that I know that have been diving for many years.

My point is that I don't think that these dives should count for nothing because there is valuable experience gained from each and every one of them. I'm not asking anybody to accept someone with 5 OW dives and 200 aquarium dives into their divemaster program, I'm just trying to find out if anybody agrees with me that these dives are still valuable in determining somebody's dive experience.

 

[CoralSeaMan]

If they must "count for" something, they count for the conditions they involve. If I were running a dive op in cooler water and I wanted to know whether the diver had any experience and he told me he had 200 aquarium dives of 1 hour at 50F then I would know he had experience in cooler water. I still wouldn't know anything about his skill with currents, limited viz and deep dives. On the other hand, with my own dive log you would only know my experiences based on the names (Cozumel = currents; Blue Hole, Belize = deep dive; Little Caymen = reef dives) and the minimal description (depth, time, weight, temp.). I could describe my experiences faster than you could read it.

 

[ScubaSteve2000]

First of all, it's your log book. There aren't any "standards" for logging dives. You can record them any way you want. Having said that, I would absolutely count the dives. You said that these dives involve using important skills like bouyancy control, working in overhead/confined environments and being around sea life. And you're providing a service.

Confined training dives are usually in a pool most of which are around 15 feet at the deep end. No rocks, no fish and usually in clear clean water. Almost a laboratory environment. It sounds like your aquarium dives are akin to diving is a small lake or pond. I do most of my diving in a lake. Not a lot of current or surge to deal with. Vis sucks. Water temp ranges from the upper 40s in the winter to the mid 80s in the summer. Your aquarium probably has a larger variety of underwater environments than the lake I dive in. Should I not count my lake dives? That doesn't make sense.

I drift dive in a local river. You need a shovel to do your safety stop. The current is strong enough to pull your regulator out of your mouth if you're not carefull. Should I not count the drift dive because it isn't over 20 feet deep?

Besides, its the diver not the log book that is in the water. Its the diver that "has the rest of his life to solve a problem underwater" (somebody on the board has that saying in his signature line but I can't think of his name right now). And it sounds like you're pretty comfortable diving and I'm willing to bet you've had a few uh-ho moments in the aquarium too.

You are one lucky dog. I'd love to have the opportunity to do what you're doing.

 

[ohmdiver]

I think there is no right answer to your question. I would like to know how this would be answered in the instructor to instructor forum.

And as there is an obvious diffrence between open water and aquiriums (I have two dives in an aquirium) But then wouldn't there also be a diffrence between salt and fresh water diving?

 

[Walter]

Any time a person dives, they have the opportunity to improve their skills. Lots of improvement comes while diving in shallow swimming pools. Buoyancy control is much more difficult when you are shallow than when you are deep. OTOH, there's a big difference psycologically between open and confined water. If you showed me a log with 50 open water dives and 200 aquarium dives, I would expect your skills to be slightly better than the typical diver with 50 dives, but you still have 50 dives and only 50 dives. FWIW, I would expect a diver with 50 dives to be quite skilled. I don't believe 50 dives is anything to be sneezed at, 50 dives is quite a few dives. he biggest changes that happen with a diver between 50 and 1000 dives have more to do with his mind than his actual dive skills. Typically, at 50 dives, a diver should be pretty damned good, but shouldn't really believe it yet. At 100 dives he's starting to believe it and maybe starting to get a little cocky which can start leading to stupid mistakes. At 500 dives, he's God's gift to diving and extremely confident which can kill the diver because he's more prone to taking short cuts. By 1000 dives, he's either killed himself, or come close and learned his lesson and realizes he's good, but he no longer cuts corners. He listens to suggestions and evaluates them, knowing there are still things to learn even from new divers. He's confident, knows his limits, but in relation to actual skills, he's not all that much better than he was at 50 dives and he knows it. His biggest advantage is he's seen lots of things go wrong and is better prepared for Murphy.

If you showed me a log with 50 open water dives and 200 aquarium dives, I would count you as having 50 dives and only 50 dives.

I would like to know how this would be answered in the instructor to instructor forum.

I would answer it there like I answered it here.