Scuba-Jay:
Ive owned a number of BCs over the years and just bought a new Oceanic Probe lx last week. Went diving yesterday and when i got home and rinsed my gear i noticed that, like the other bc's there was water in the air bladder. For some reason i was hoping that the technology had progressed far enough that they could have figured out a way to avoid this, but i guess not. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to at least limit this occurring? What do you think the effects of leaving water in the bladder for an extended period of time might be (not that I'm planning on doing this) and has anyone figured out a way of dumping the water out at the end of a dive without using the dump valves (probably not).
Jay
Part of the OW classes I took covered post dive care for your BC. All students were taught to inflate the BC before removing it from the cylinder. The students are then taught to shut off the air supply, purge the second stage and remove the regulator hose from the BC inflater.
The students are then taught to do the following:
Turn the BC upside down with the inflater at the lowest point
Squeeze the BC depressing the deflater button
I have a brand new Aeris Atmos XT BC and it still gets a little water in it. I also have an Atomic SS1 instead of an octopus. I can easily unscrew the SS1 and flood the BC bladder with fresh water. This gets out most of the salt residue.
If I go on a multi-day dive trip I usually rinse out the BC bladder with BC Life which is designed for that purpose. Some other folks on ScubaBoard use Listerine or some other mouthwash to kill any germs or bacteria within the bladder. Still others use dish washing liquid.
I leave the SS1 off so fresh air can get into the bladder while the BC is drying. My theory here is that the fresh air will dry out the inside and minimize the amount of bacteria that forms inside the bladder. When storing the BC for any period of time I always throughly clean the inside of the bladder with BC Life, let it dry then orally inflate the BC so I don't have to worry about opposite sides of the bladder sticking together.
It should be noted that I cannot take credit for all of these suggestions since many of them I learned from classes, discussions with other divers and by reading comments from other ScubaBoard members who have infinitely more diving experience that I do. Based on your comments it seems that you have much more experience that me having owned several BCs.
I have found this procedure works well for me. It certainly does not mean it is the only way this can be done.
Hopefully this helps.
