Reminder to check your tanks for CO !

[cruiser]

...not as reassuring an outcome as I'd hoped to hear.

He seemed concerned about the lack of air quality. I hope he passed it on to his boss.

 

[kwinter]

What dive op were you using?

He seemed concerned about the lack of air quality. I hope he passed it on to his boss.

I hope you understand that dive ops in Cozumel do not run compressors and fill tanks. Almost all of them get their gas from a central filling operation called Meridiano. It is irresponsible to name and blame an operator for a tank of bad gas you supposedly found. On top of that, the chance that some tanks of banked gas (air or banked nitrox rather than a custom blend) had one reading while others had a different reading would lead me to suspect your analyzer of inaccuracy. You did the right thing by analyzing, choosing a tank that satisfied you, and reporting your findings. But you might want to double check the accuracy. CO in a tank from Meridiano did cause the death of an American cave diver a couple of years ago. Since then they have put in more monitoring and safeguards, and more people are carrying CO monitors to test their gas. The odds that you found contaminated tanks and no one else has are probably lower than the odds that your analyzer gave your false positive readings. But you still did the right thing.

 

[Peter69_56]

Whoa, that is high. It probably saved your life, or at least a severe flu-like illness

Testing tanks has become routine with me, even here in the states, because you never know if they contain CO unless you test them.

Well that doesn't sound good. My expectation is that it should be an odd tank on the odd occasion? It sounds like in US (and other countries) that its a more common occurrence. In all the time I have been diving, I have only had 2 tanks bad, one in Bali and one here in Oz.

 

[Mr Carcharodon]

NOAA puts a limit of 10 ppm for CO, NAVSEA allows 20 ppm. Atmospheric background is 0.2 ppm so having zero is not an option when ambient air is being compressed. How did you decide to draw the line at 7 ppm?

 

[Peter69_56]

OZ is 10 ppm.

UK is 10 ppm but 3 ppm weighted. I am not sure how the difference is determined for this one

 

[Altamira]

I hope you understand that dive ops in Cozumel do not run compressors and fill tanks. Almost all of them get their gas from a central filling operation called Meridiano. It is irresponsible to name and blame an operator for a tank of bad gas you supposedly found. On top of that, the chance that some tanks of banked gas (air or banked nitrox rather than a custom blend) had one reading while others had a different reading would lead me to suspect your analyzer of inaccuracy. You did the right thing by analyzing, choosing a tank that satisfied you, and reporting your findings. But you might want to double check the accuracy. CO in a tank from Meridiano did cause the death of an American cave diver a couple of years ago. Since then they have put in more monitoring and safeguards, and more people are carrying CO monitors to test their gas. The odds that you found contaminated tanks and no one else has are probably lower than the odds that your analyzer gave your false positive readings. But you still did the right thing.

The odds of most divers looking for, much less finding, CO in their tanks is almost non-existent unless it hurts or kills them because they do not carry a CO analyzer on their dive trip. I have and use one, but I have never seen another diver test any tank on any dive trip or before leaving the LDS with a tank. In the litigious society in which we live, if I was a dive op in Cozumel or anywhere else, I would analyze every tank before it left the shop. No exceptions. Somehow, I do not think a judge/jury would be very impressed with a defense of "...Hey, it's not our fault, we got the tanks from Meridiano". Good luck with that defense.

 

[KevinNM]

If Cozumel was in the U.S., then maybe. Very few places are like the U.S. I have no idea how the Mexican justice system really works, but my impression is that foreigners suing Mexican businesses are unlikely to result in an outcome that makes the foreigner happy.

 

[cruiser]

kwinter--Even with an electric compressor, it is possible to get carbon monoxide tainted air. If an electric compressor flashes, the resulting CO can end up in a few scuba tanks. The tanks filled after that can have little or no CO in them. So even though a batch looks good, there can be a few tanks within that batch that contain carbon monoxide.


DAN generously gave air fill ops on the island free in-line monitors. There are variables to installing and using them properly, and maintaining them on an on-going basis. Rather than leaving that to chance, I choose to test every tank I dive which is easy to do with the portable units available today.


I've been testing tanks for 5 years (including 10 trips to Cozumel). This is the first time I've had a tank with CO on the island. (I test air everywhere I travel, even my tanks here at home from my LDS.) Because it's part of my diving routine, my unit is up-to-date on calibration and servicing. It was working properly.


No blaming here, just want to reiterate the importance of testing tanks, whatever op you use. I enjoyed diving with this op, have referred friends there and will be back. They have a nice facility, friendly staff, delicious restaurant and enjoyable shore diving.

---------- Post added May 17th, 2015 at 08:27 PM ----------

NOAA puts a limit of 10 ppm for CO, NAVSEA allows 20 ppm. Atmospheric background is 0.2 ppm so having zero is not an option when ambient air is being compressed. How did you decide to draw the line at 7 ppm?

Mr. C--My personal limit is 2. I dove deep on a 5 ppm tank once before understanding how toxic that was at depth and was sick the next 3 days.

 

[DandyDon]

The odds of most divers looking for, much less finding, CO in their tanks is almost non-existent unless it hurts or kills them because they do not carry a CO analyzer on their dive trip. I have and use one, but I have never seen another diver test any tank on any dive trip or before leaving the LDS with a tank. In the litigious society in which we live, if I was a dive op in Cozumel or anywhere else, I would analyze every tank before it left the shop. No exceptions. Somehow, I do not think a judge/jury would be very impressed with a defense of "...Hey, it's not our fault, we got the tanks from Meridiano". Good luck with that defense.

Mexican justice is still quite different from ours. Seriously. It's often cheaper to pay the fines than prevent the injuries. I think they are trying harder because they know we're testing more, but if someone screws up on an off day - they'll have a saying for that.

Blue Angel

The last time I stayed there years ago, the new owner told me about getting his own compressor - but in our discussion, he seemed to think that electric compressors were not capable of producing CO, a mistake still common thru the industry. He's gone now. His ex runs the place. She seems nice, but I don't know who runs the compressor.

First time I used my brand new tester down south it stated beeping with 30ppm.

Wow! Really bad sign. Where? It's hard to stay what the ultimate risk was, not knowing how deep you'd planned to go, etc. and CO poisoning is tricky, affecting different people differently.

I hope you understand that dive ops in Cozumel do not run compressors and fill tanks. Almost all of them get their gas from a central filling operation called Meridiano. It is irresponsible to name and blame an operator for a tank of bad gas you supposedly found. On top of that, the chance that some tanks of banked gas (air or banked nitrox rather than a custom blend) had one reading while others had a different reading would lead me to suspect your analyzer of inaccuracy. You did the right thing by analyzing, choosing a tank that satisfied you, and reporting your findings. But you might want to double check the accuracy. CO in a tank from Meridiano did cause the death of an American cave diver a couple of years ago. Since then they have put in more monitoring and safeguards, and more people are carrying CO monitors to test their gas. The odds that you found contaminated tanks and no one else has are probably lower than the odds that your analyzer gave your false positive readings. But you still did the right thing.

There are several other compressors on the island actually, and reports on Meridiano tanks keep happening. One big Op there lost a large concession at a resort after injuring some divers.

I'm taking two different CO testers next week to Coz tho, so we'll see if I can get a comparison. A 1 ppm reading can be a rounding false-positive, and a 2 could be a testing error, but any more - and I start wondering what else they'll allowing in the tanks, and how much the problem varies?

Do you argue with your smoke alarm when it goes off too...??

 

[cruiser]

Well that doesn't sound good. My expectation is that it should be an odd tank on the odd occasion? It sounds like in US (and other countries) that its a more common occurrence. In all the time I have been diving, I have only had 2 tanks bad, one in Bali and one here in Oz.

Peter--I don't find many tanks with CO. But when I do, it makes all the testing worthwhile. I've found CO tanks in Aruba mostly. My LDS tanks are always 0.