Pony bottle weighting?

[XxMerlinxX]

Just got a new 19cf pony and I'm wondering how it's going to affect my buoyancy? Right now I have two 4.5lbs weights on my belt, one on either side, and a 5lbs. weight dead center on the top tank cam band. Will the pony be positive or negative in the water? If negative, I'll just shift the tank weight over a little to help offset the weight of the pony and drop a little lead from my waist. If positive, I'm not sure what I'm going to do.... maybe go on a diet.

 

[Scared Silly]

Most small AL bottles are slightly negative (<2lbs) when full. Probably easiest to drop a pound from the cylinder band and move it over a bit.

FWIW - when I sling a bottle I do not change my weighting.

Oh ya lose some weight .

 

[zoom5]

The Luxfer and Catalina 19s are both about neutral when empty so you shouldn't have to change anything. They start out negative when full approx. 1.3lbs.

Scuba Cylinder Specifications from Tech Diving Limited - 928-855-9400

 

[knowone]

Remember to add rigging and breathing apparatus weight to avoid a trip to the abyss

 

[dumpsterDiver]

The first stage on the pony is going to make it more negative, obviously the size of the first stage has some relevance.

I generally do not try to offset this by adjusting my weight belt or configuration of lead. If you are really picky, you should probably drop about 2 lbs of lead from your rig and configure the remaining lead to be about 2 lbs heavier on the opposite side of the pony bottle.

 

[spectrum]

My 19 represents 4 pounds of weight in the water.

The next decision is what to do with that information.
1) Remove 4 pounds of lead to dive with perfect weighting
2) Remove 3 pounds in case you breathe it down.
3) Remove nothing but redistribute for balance in case you hand it off to a buddy.

You should be able to tolerate some under weighting with lung volume control. Just be careful you don't set your self up for an uncontrolled ascent.

Pete

 

[Hatul]

I like Pete's answer. Since I don't like diving overweighted I went with option 2. I don't plan to hand off the pony so I drop 3 lbs on the side of the pony.

Adam

 

[idive2]

My 19 represents 4 pounds of weight in the water.

The next decision is what to do with that information.
1) Remove 4 pounds of lead to dive with perfect weighting
2) Remove 3 pounds in case you breathe it down.
3) Remove nothing but redistribute for balance in case you hand it off to a buddy.

I went with number three, although one time I forgot to put the offsetting weight in the opposite
trim pocket and was was surprised at how little listing I actually felt due to the pony. It was very
slight but not really bothersome. I made it through the dive but had the pony been handed off I would
have been under weighted because the weight I left out was part of my standard weighting without pony.