Looking to buy new tanks.

[SpeedyJ]

Would I be good to go buying a painted one if I’m only diving fresh water? When I travel I rent tanks obviously so I would never have my tanks in saltwater.

Fellow Great Lakes cold water diver. Are you planning on doing any technical diving in the future? If so, most great lakes charter ops will cave fill your LP tanks (as God intended) and LP85s make great doubles and trim out well for most people.

Sure you can get painted tanks, but when galvanized are available they're far better choices. Dive Gear Express has great prices on galvanized tanks new, but consider buying used as there are tanks that pop up in the area all the time.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

Just for size referencing, the pic below is of my two steel hot dipped HP102's standing next to the standard Luxfer Aluminum 80 that I keep on my boat for emergency O2.... Both are 7.25 diameter (OD). These HP's are the ones that Eric mentioned as recently being "re-certified"......

The second pic is of the angled valves on my HP's. If you can find-em, I really love these valves as they keep the first stage a bit further from my head and the angle is also "friendly" for hose routing.

My preference is for NO paint on any tank........My 19cf pony is yellow only because I got a special deal on it!

 

[halocline]

Would I be good to go buying a painted one if I’m only diving fresh water? When I travel I rent tanks obviously so I would never have my tanks in saltwater.

The faber finishing process has proven to be very durable. It's not just paint. But you really should borrow/rent a few different tanks, because the size, weight, and trim characteristics vary quite a bit.

The only tanks I would say absolutely stay away from are AL100s. Those tanks are the worst of everything; very big, very heavy on land, and very floaty in the water. And you often get short fills on them.

For single tank, shallow local diving, I like AL63s. They're easy to carry around and a little less positive than AL80s. The few times I went to Bonaire, I used 63s almost all the time. It's not always advantageous to carry a lot of gas on a dive. But for cold water, if you're in a drysuit, you'd probably want more ballast.

You might want to check with wherever you are going to get the tanks filled, and make sure that they will fill the HP tanks to 3442. Likewise, if you buy a LP tank, you need to make sure that the shop will fill them to the plus rating, and hydro shops in your area will re-qualify them with the plus rating. This can be a real problem.

 

[Msr1015]

I was just looking at the hp100s. Im 5’10 and I’ve been using AL80s which are basically the same size as a hp100 steel. Would like to get steels for the buoyancy

 

[PR_SMITH]

HP 100's are great! Very similar in size to an al80, but 20ft more gas. I dive cold water in Canada and love steel tanks.

 

[Tracy]

The only tanks I would say absolutely stay away from are AL100s. Those tanks are the worst of everything; very big, very heavy on land, and very floaty in the water. And you often get short fills on them.

Yes, they are the worst tanks for everything. Stupid heavy to carry and horrible trim and buoyancy for diving.

You might want to check with wherever you are going to get the tanks filled, and make sure that they will fill the HP tanks to 3442.

Why does it matter?
If they don't fill to 3442, they will still fill them to whatever pressure they can. Even if they are running an old 3200 psi compressor, 3200 will still be more than 2640 if they only fill to rated pressure on an LP tank.
Basically, unless they are cheap, buying an LP85 over an hp100 outside of Florida and very few other shops will yield you less breathing gas every time.
For the same money, always buy the HP version.