Do you turn the air off or leave it on after setting up on a tank?

[NorCalDM]

Because you(any diver, could be his first dive from being certified) can be too excited to remember turning it back on and jump in water. Ask any Boat DM how many divers attempted to jump in with air turned off and luckily DM caught it and turned it open for them.

My point wasn’t to suggest that one SHOULD remove reg, my point was that once reg is hooked up air should be on, no good reason not to be.

Always assume your air is off, never jump in water without doing three giant breaths staring at spg. That is redundancy.

Well if you are leave it on or turn if off I don't care but being able to turn it on while kitted up is something you should be able to do because it can happen either way. My wife and myself have had the all helpful boat guy turn our air off while we where jumping in. Both were negative bluewater entries in current aiming for a pinnacle so what did we do, reached back and turned it on, check the air and continued the dive. Point is learn how to do it as it's not hard only maybe a slight change to your set up but then it is just a minor inconvenience and not a panic inducing moment.

 

[Baker_Dive]

Seriously? You are just a master at making friends and influencing people aren't you? Get off your high horse for just a minute and quit reading into other people's posts what you think they are saying. Read what others have to say, process it, and if you have an alternative viewpoint, articulate that without being obnoxious.

I was joking man. Sorry if it came off callous or obnoxious. Re reading it you are correct and I retract previous statement. Have a wonderful day

 

[waterone]

Because you(any diver, could be his first dive from being certified) can be too excited to remember turning it back on and jump in water.

When I used to jump wingsuits there was much more excitement and things going through my head as I got ready to step off, but I was still able to do my checks. At least with a tank I can reach over and turn it back on

Ask any Boat DM how many divers attempted to jump in with air turned off and luckily DM caught it and turned it open for them.

Sure, things happen when people don't check fully their own gear, I am not saying otherwise. I've seen DM's and others run out of air and do many other silly things that IMO should not have happened.

My point wasn’t to suggest that one SHOULD remove reg, my point was that once reg is hooked up air should be on, no good reason not to be.

To me there are valid reasons, for you it seems not. I feel no need to leave my gear pressurized while I sit on the boat.

Always assume your air is off, never jump in water without doing three giant breaths staring at spg. That is redundancy.

I don't need to assume my air is off, I know it is until I turn it back on.

 

[Baker_Dive]

When I used to jump wingsuits there was much more excitement and things going through my head as I got ready to step off, but I was still able to do my checks. At least with a tank I can reach over and turn it back on

Sure, things happen when people don't check fully their own gear, I am not saying otherwise. I've seen DM's and others run out of air and do many other silly things that IMO should not have happened.

To me there are valid reasons, for you it seems not. I feel no need to leave my gear pressurized while I sit on the boat.

I don't need to assume my air is off, I know it is until I turn it back on.

Wing suits?! I can’t imagine the adrenaline

Fair enough on your points, safe diving brother

 

[davehicks]

You do you man. If my reg is attached air is on. Ask any DM how many times divers tried jumping in with air off and the DM caught it. The only reasons I hear for turning it off is to save precious air and possibly battery if integrated, Neither of which Outweighs the risk.

My point about removing regs is to ensure you turn air on, if you are like me and if reg attached it means tank is on. Also, like all good safety scuba training, we ensure redundancy. Three giant deep breaths while staring at SPG

You have adopted a dangerous and impractical practice. Maybe it works for you in a narrow use case, but it's not a good idea.

A lot of the diving that we all do involves multi-day dive trips on liveaboards or resorts. It is very common in these scenarios that your dive gear is on a boat or skiff and remains there for an entire week. In almost every place I have ever dove the practice is that you personally remove your regulator after a dive, indicating that you need a fill. Then a crew member goes around filling the tanks and reconnects the regulator to the tank, leaving the valve closed. This is both between dives, and after the last dive of the day. The tank is always closed.

The habit that you are building is that your regulator is attached and on. But some other person filled it and it is not on. Are you more likely to jump in the water with your air off? Are you going to deviate from your habit during this dive trip? And when you go home you switch back to a different pattern?

You are much more likely to be consistently safe if you always assume and expect your air to be off when you go to gear up.

Repeating from above:

• You should always assume your air is off when you gear up.
• Look at your SPG and turn on your air. I want to see the needle / computer go from 0 to Full. This avoids the charged but off or partially open valve scenario that has killed many divers.
• Test your BC and Drysuit inflator to ensure the LP hose is connected properly and they inflate without sticking.
• Test both of regs by breathing and at least purging the octo.

 

[BRT]

This is ridiculous. Don't remove your regulators from the tank. It is good practice to set your gear as early as possible in the dive platform. Turn everything on and make sure all is working and not leaking. Regs, BC inflator, etc. I would turn everything off, but that is for each person to decide. Removing the reg means you need to retest it, and with less time to respond in a relaxed manner.

Personally, I think it is bad practice and builds dangerous habits to ever assume your air is on and ready to dive before gearing up to get in the water. The reality is that if you turn on your tank early on and leave it on, you don't know what happens to it in the interval until you return. Perhaps it was leaking, and someone turned it off. Perhaps a well-meaning fellow diver or crew member turned it off knowing there was a long boat ride. Maybe you forgot to leave it on this one time.

• You should always assume your air is off when you gear up.
• Look at your SPG and turn on your air. I want to see the needle / computer go from 0 to Full. This avoids the charged but off or partially open valve scenario that has killed many divers.
• Test your BC and Drysuit inflator to ensure the LP hose is connected properly and they inflate without sticking.
• Test both of regs by breathing and at least purging the octo.

• You should always assume your air is off when you gear up.
• Look at your SPG and turn on your air. I want to see the needle / computer go from 0 to Full. This avoids the charged but off or partially open valve scenario that has killed many divers.
• Test your BC and Drysuit inflator to ensure the LP hose is connected properly and they inflate without sticking.
• Test both of regs by breathing and at least purging the octo.

This is truth and may keep you alive.

 

[Baker_Dive]

You have adopted a dangerous and impractical practice. Maybe it works for you in a narrow use case, but it's not a good idea.

A lot of the diving that we all do involves multi-day dive trips on liveaboards or resorts. It is very common in these scenarios that your dive gear is on a boat or skiff and remains there for an entire week. In almost every place I have ever dove the practice is that you personally remove your regulator after a dive, indicating that you need a fill. Then a crew member goes around filling the tanks and reconnects the regulator to the tank, leaving the valve closed. This is both between dives, and after the last dive of the day. The tank is always closed.

The habit that you are building is that your regulator is attached and on. But some other person filled it and it is not on. Are you more likely to jump in the water with your air off? Are you going to deviate from your habit during this dive trip? And when you go home you switch back to a different pattern?

You are much more likely to be consistently safe if you always assume and expect your air to be off when you go to gear up.

Repeating from above:

• You should always assume your air is off when you gear up.
• Look at your SPG and turn on your air. I want to see the needle / computer go from 0 to Full. This avoids the charged but off or partially open valve scenario that has killed many divers.
• Test your BC and Drysuit inflator to ensure the LP hose is connected properly and they inflate without sticking.
• Test both of regs by breathing and at least purging the octo.

We agree fully on pre dive safety checks and assuming air is off, while adding a squirt of air to bcd and taking three breaths. I will add the purge to octo to my pre dive, as I routinely forget that aspect.

That is good points for liveaboard and raises good questions. In my experience, the liveaboard I’ve done did not reconnect reg after filling tanks. They would reluctantly remove reg if I didn’t remove after dive, but they wouldn’t reattach reg as far as I recall.

The messaging of assuming it’s off and doing checks are what’s key and leaving on or off is irrelevant as long you enter the water with it on.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Repeating from above:

• Look at your SPG and turn on your air. I want to see the needle / computer go from 0 to Full. This avoids the charged but off or partially open valve scenario that has killed many divers.

Dave,

A partially open valve will still read the cylinder pressure. Now when a diver descends, then it becomes an issue.

 

[SlugLife]

99% of the time I am walking into the water not jumping. Often I set my kit up at home and drive to the dive site with the air off.
Although I have jumped into the water with my air off that is not a reason to panic. With an inflated BCD the diver will be bobbing up in a few seconds. What is there to panic about? If a diver is panicked that easily perhaps they should be rethinking their decision to be diving?

One time I did slip off a rock while putting my fins on with a deflated BCD, double steel tanks, air on. I hit the bottom at 15FSW, could not find my second stage, didn't have an octo. 2nd stage at that time and had not got to put my fins, the BCD was borrowed and the auto-inflator didn't work as fast as I was accustomed to. I did become afraid I was going to drown in 15FSW with 160 cuft of air on my back! All I could think was how embarrassing! I had been diving for 20 years at that time and was determined not to die for such a silly reason. I shucked my weight belt and floated to the surface. Then I had to ask my still laughing buddy to retrieve my weights.

That could have been a panic situation for most anyone. I'm not sure I would have been able to control my fear if my weight belt had gotten stuck or for some reason I didn't start ascending.

Agreed. It's not that you WILL die, but rather, this is about redundancy. Between:

• Proper weighting
• Inflated BCD
• Being 100% certain your air is on

Truthfully, you'll be fine, so long as you are properly weighted or even a few lbs heavy, regardless of BCD inflation or having the air on. However, failing proper weighting, either the inflated BCD or having your air on will also practically guarantee you don't die. Considering the potential consequences of death or serious injury, I try to keep my redundancies as close to "3 out of 3" as possible.

Do you have pressure transmitter for your dive computer? Leaving the air on while the rig just sitting will waste the transmitter battery juice and shorten the battery life. I turn the air on just before I actually put the BCD on and confirm the pressure with my dive computer.

Good point on batteries. I always have a spare set anyway, but no reason to be wasteful.

Yes. A shortens battery life does not outweigh the risks of jumping in negative. That is my opinion.

I will say I don’t hook it up immediately upon getting on boat, thirty mins or so before is usual for me.

Why take the risk is all I come back too.

For me personally, I'm at MORE risk if I turn my air on 30 minutes pre-dive. That would introduce inconsistency in my routine. There would be times where I don't finish my pre-pre-dive setup, and the air would be off. Therefore, I would have greater risk because I might mistakenly assume my air was previously turned on, when it wasn't. Obviously, one should double-check their air immediately before a dive anyway. However, I'm working with how I know my brain works.

In other words, do what works best for you ... which may not be the same for every diver.

 

[SlugLife]

3. Remove reg from tank if you are so worried about a few psi lol.

Like I said, having a short dive or even a cancelled dive is better than jumping in negative with gas turned off. If my reg is hooked to tank it is turned on at all times.

I'm an advocate of "do what works for you." If your personal routine is to only have your air on, when your reg is attached, and that works for you, go for it. Changing that now may actually be dangerous for you, simply because of habits you've developed. There's also always some risk of perhaps you got distracted and missed a step, someone else turned off your air, or your regulator got bumped and dumped a few hundred (or thousand) PSI. So I'd caution against assuming a hooked-up-reg is always turned on and ready to go.

That said, it is completely unnecessary to disconnect a regulator to prevent losing air from the tank. For me personally, my routine is always that the tank is always off before any dive, and must always be turned on. I have never jumped in, or almost jumped in, with a tank off. My dive-buddies have done it several times, or I caught them about to jump in that way.

Personally, I think it is bad practice and builds dangerous habits to ever assume your air is on and ready to dive before gearing up to get in the water.

I absolutely agree. For me personally, knowing how my brain works, I deliberately turn off the air and purge most of the pressure. That way:

• (a) the tank is always off pre-dive, there is no guessing, and
• (b) any attempted use of the regulator will immediately show the tank is off; there's no mistaking a pressurized regulator for being on.
• (c) I may be a nice guy, but anyone who touched my equipment gets a lecture.

For me, I need a VERY reliable routine. Yeah, I can wing it and be accurate 98% of the time, but I am occasionally absent-minded.

You do you man. If my reg is attached air is on. Ask any DM how many times divers tried jumping in with air off and the DM caught it. The only reasons I hear for turning it off is to save precious air and possibly battery if integrated, Neither of which Outweighs the risk.

My point about removing regs is to ensure you turn air on, if you are like me and if reg attached it means tank is on. Also, like all good safety scuba training, we ensure redundancy. Three giant deep breaths while staring at SPG

Assumptions can be dangerous. Specifically, the assumption that "hooked up reg means air is on."

Just because a DM catches people with the air off, doesn't always logically lead to the conclusions you propose. You might said "people nearly jumping in with the air off, is a very good reason to do something to ensure that doesn't happen." What you shouldn't say is "therefore you must follow the same routine I follow."

As I stated above, people should do what works best for themselves and their psychi.