tanks and nitrox stickers

[Davidstealey3]

Ok, so you O2 clean my tanks, then fill them. I then go diving for the next two months and fill my tanks with regular air from my home compressor. I tend to be suicidal though so I use a gas compressor, with no venting and just use an old oily rag as my intake filter. Now I decide to bring my tanks back to you because I want some good ole O2. You cleaned them, but you have no idea what I put in them.

The sticker tells you when it was O2 cleaned and regardless of whether you put the sticker on it yesterday or another shop did 6 months ago, you still have no idea what has been put into once it leaves your sight.

This sounds like a perfect example of LDSs "give me money" line.

You know, if I had to pump pure oxygen into someone's tank, I would want to O2 clean it myself. OK, so it was cleaned, way back when. How do I, a simple tank monkey, know that you haven't polluted the tank with crappy air after is was cleaned?

It's odd, LDSs are willing to accept the 'Nitrox Clean' from tank manufacturers before doing partial pressure blending. But that's not what the tank manufacturer said. They said the tank was clean for EAN40, not pure O2. I have always wondered about that...

here are two statements i read in another post, and belive it should be cleared up and explained.

i might be off on this just a bit, so i will ask Gilldiver and Luis H to chime in and correct me where i am off, but here it goes

Quote 1

your right, we dont know what went in the tank. but if you are not using your tank strickly for nitrox use, the sticker has to be pulled off the tank.

the shop should ask you if it has had anything but nitrox put in the tank ( and since people dont allways tell you the truth ) and analyise the contents off the tank to be sure. if it does not have a certain percentage of 02 ( it think is 23 % but this is where i might need the correction, i dont have the book with me to check ) the sticker needs to be removed because you have changed the contents of the tank. this is a CGA or DOT ( one or the other ) rule.

as far as the fact that you are using your home compressor, if the air you produce is not modified grade E, is is not sutiable for use with oxygen and should not be used for paritial pressure blending.

Quote 2

as i talked about in the first quote, you should be checking the 02 content of the tank. this should be part of fill station operator training at a shop to help inform you ( the filler ) of these questions.

as for the nitrox clean from the factory, i believe the word you should of used is "compatiable". the tanks are good for use with 40% or less nitrox mixtures, but only if fillede from a bank system filled with premix 40% or less mixtures, or a membrane system. if you are going to put 02 in the tank it should be cleaned first.

hope this clears up some questions people might have reguarding this subject, and as i said before, i might be off a little in these expliantions and would like to be corrected anywhere i am wrong.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Could you give me the source of the rule that the nitrox sticker has to be pulled if you use air?

I am not aware of the rule and break it all the time. I do of course always label my contents in the tank with date, name, %, pressure and location of fill.

 

[Rick Inman]

if it does not have a certain percentage of 02 ( it think is 23 % but this is where i might need the correction, i dont have the book with me to check ) the sticker needs to be removed because you have changed the contents of the tank.

This is the kind of thinking that makes me glad not to be in the crazy LDS system of gas buffoonery. What's in my tank NOW has nothing to do with anything when it comes to how clean the tank is, or what's been in it before. So the tank monk- .., ah, I mean shop employee analyzes my tanks and finds 18% O2... What does that mean? Maybe I topped nitrox with HE. Or maybe I did a PP fill. And who cares?

The only reason I can see to analyze my tank contents is to make sure I'm not sneaking in 100% or a high O2 content for a PP top without telling you. But otherwise, just fill my tanks with what I ask, let me give you some money for your trouble and move on. As long as the LDS is not PP blending into my tanks and the top percentage of O2 is 40%, then it doesn't matter, and the mix is my business.

Oh, and how about we have the LDS prove to ME how clean their fills are? Forget your modified grade EEEEEEE cert - that doesn't prove to me how clean the gas/hoses/filters and integrity of the system, etc are NOW. Maybe with all the LDS paranoia about my tanks, it ends up that you are dirtying up the things. Can the LDS prove otherwise? If not, then I should rip off all the stickers they have at their store suggesting clean air, right?

Please, the LDS can keep their big neon tank Nitrox stickers, which mean less than nothing, except a few extra dollars from the uneducated.

(Hummm... Just re-read my post and it reads very rant-like . Have a nice day )

 

[Davidstealey3]

thats why i am hoping that one of the two people mentioned above will respond to this.
i do not have the book here to quote the statment, but we did talk about it in my VIP class.

it is broken all the time ( myself included ) but we have modified grade E air at the shop, and if we need to put 02 in to get nitrox, we have to drain the tanks.

i am not going to critize people for doing it, just wanted to touch on the subject because of the statements

 

[mike_s]

Could you give me the source of the rule that the nitrox sticker has to be pulled if you use air?

I am not aware of the rule and break it all the time. I do of course always label my contents in the tank with date, name, %, pressure and location of fill.

there isn't a rule. some folks just make stupid stuff like that up.


If your tank is o2 clean, then no issues with putting o2 clean regular air in your tank and marking it 21%. (If topping off a nitrox fill, of course you should analyze it)


if your tank is not o2 clean and filled from banked EAN, no issues with filling it with regular air and marking as such either. (same applies with analyzing it).


you just shouldn't put non-o2 clean air into an o2 clean tank. (unless you plan on re-cleaning it before using it for partial pressure blending again). simple as that.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

there isn't a rule. some folks just make stupid stuff like that up.


If your tank is o2 clean, then no issues with putting o2 clean regular air in your tank and marking it 21%. (If topping off a nitrox fill, of course you should analyze it)


if your tank is not o2 clean and filled from banked EAN, no issues with filling it with regular air and marking as such either. (same applies with analyzing it).


you just shouldn't put non-o2 clean air into an o2 clean tank. (unless you plan on re-cleaning it before using it for partial pressure blending again). simple as that.

Yup. Sometimes it is easier to just asked a person quoting a 'rule' where it came from. Most of the time, its someone told me...... The OP sounds a little confused.

 

[snowmaker]

I had two very different experiences with two somewhat local shops.

First place I needed some 32% for a trip down to NC. My steel tanks had only the VIP stickers on them. This shop insisted on putting huge nitrox stickers on my tanks and charging me for them.

Second shop I went into for some O2. Took a new 40cuft bottle that only had the VIP sticker. This was a new tank and I hadn't even put stage straps on it. No problem all they wanted to see was a Advanced Nitrox card.

If I wanted to cover my tanks with stickers I would. Why must I do it with my own tanks. I know whats in my tanks. It's written on a piece of tape. I can see the sticker for shop/boat tanks so they know which are filled with air and which are not quickly but why on my tanks.

 

[oxyhacker]

A lot of the confusion arises from the fact that a lot of people are always looking for "permission" or some kind of official guidelines, but on most of these matters, there are no official rules - just a lot of unofficial ones that various players in the industry have made up. Often they are very conservative as they are made up to protect the agency from liability rather than to reflect reality.

I don't think I have seen it in print that you must pull the nitrox or O2-clean sticker from any tank that has seen non-OCA, but most of the tech agencies say somewhere that a tank once cleaned should never be filled with non-OCA, which is pretty much the same thing, and I know many dive shops won't put Grade E air into a tank marked as O2 clean (and some that won't even put OCA into a tanks with a nitrox band, which is why wise divers use a "Custom Mix" or even "Voodoo Gas" label instead of a nitrox or trimix wrap, and let the easily removable contents label indicate the current mix). However the CGA and the DOT could care less about what divers are breathing, or doing with their own privately owned tanks, so don't look for guidance there.

RE how can you tell if a tank is still clean, there are many in the tech dive industry who think this is overkill anyhow, and that plain ol' Grade E breathing air is plenty good for PP mixing. Even if the air is less than perfect (catastrophic events notwithstanding) one or even 10 fills of less than OCA is highly unlikely to make your tank to go boom, it is long term build up that is the danger, which is why yearly cleaning is the usual practice.

Oh, someone asked how the diver can tell that the shop's air is any good. Any reputable shop will have the air test slips for the last few year hanging up somewhere so you can examine them. I wouldn't give a nickle for one test, but if you can look at a whole stack of them a pretty good pattern will emerge. If the shop will only show you the latest, or won't let you see any, then quickly go someplace else.

 

[rstofer]

If I wanted to cover my tanks with stickers I would. Why must I do it with my own tanks. I know whats in my tanks. It's written on a piece of tape. I can see the sticker for shop/boat tanks so they know which are filled with air and which are not quickly but why on my tanks.

The purpose of the sticker is to warn other people that the tank may contain something other than air. That's all it does.

Seeing such a sticker, the theory holds, the errant diver would be less inclined to grab the wrong tank. For that purpose, I like the VooDoo Gas stickers better. They are more specific about the fact that the contents can kill you.

I suppose if every tank in the world had Nitrox stickers, it would be like the boy crying wolf. They would simply be ignored.

All 16 of my tanks had Nitrox stickers. I had them all O2 clearned and, from time to time, several of them actually contained something other than air. I decided to remove the stickers from the Al 50s my grandson uses to prevent confusion should he happen to be in another training class.

But the actual contents is marked on the tank with a bit of that nifty %____MOD____ tape.

Richard

 

[mike_s]

The purpose of the sticker is to warn other people that the tank may contain something other than air. That's all it does.

Seeing such a sticker, the theory holds, the errant diver would be less inclined to grab the wrong tank. For that purpose, I like the VooDoo Gas stickers better. They are more specific about the fact that the contents can kill you.

I prefer this one.