Water bath for filling Al tanks?

[Nudi]

Question: When filling an aluminum tank (like my Catalina S80), should it be immersed in a water bath to keep it cool or not? One LDS told me that it can cause cracks to form over time due to the wall thickness and thermal properties of Al tanks. Another LDS told me this is BS. Anyone else care to share an educated opinion?

Thanks
-Nudibranch

 

[Dectek]

That topic can get heated... no pun intended.
It came up in a tread (honest phil) a couple weeks back.
http://www.scubaboard.com/t18227/s.html

 

[SDAnderson]

This is a long-standing practice in the wonderful world of scuba that good people have agreed to disagree about. For some information from someone who is certainly one of the authorities on the subject, read this by Bill High, President of Professional Scuba Inspectors:

Filling Cylinders In Water - Time To Review

Steven

 

[Big-t-2538]

From my point of view and what I've experienced, the water doesn't make a tremendous difference. In order for it to make a difference, the water has to be changed regularly, there has to be plenty of room between one tank and the next tank in the bath (say a min of 8 in. from one tank to another), you have to educate someone about the dangers of mixing a drop of water into an AL80 or steel tank (the $h!t will rust much faster), you have to keep the whips and tank vales clear of the water, etc. In short, if you are filling your tanks and are comfortable with using a water bath correctly, go for it...otherwise it really doesn't make much difference, especially if you're filling slow ~200 psig/min. give or take a few pounds.

As for the crakcs that can develop, that would be due more to overfilling than a water bath...if tanks crakced in the water bath, why would we take them diving????? IF I were you I'm not sure I would trust the guy at that shop until I did a little more investigation.