Ways you can use a spare air tank other than as scuba redundancy

[vladimir]

Honestly, I wouldn't dive that much except for in pools as we dont get to the beach hardly ever, so until the novelty wears off I'm having fun, after that its craigslist for a 50% return, better than my other hobbies that's f s. These are fun enough I will likely plan a flight vacation around them, for power snorkeling purposes. I followed basic dive rules and it was great! If I choose to bear the cost and make reasonably safe choices with it, there's no logic against microdiving I can see unless someone can prove the equipment is prone to fail (which if you can I'll listen!) this was the most fun we'd had in years and years. Would I dive under an abuttment with one or under a dock or out into current? nope, but I would dive down 10-20 feet occasionally to look at a starfish in a lagoon, then come up to continue snorkeling, to me this is better than diving because of no rigamarole whatsoever, simply go.

Before you pronounce your new sport (microdiving or power snorkeling?) completely safe, do a search here for "bubble pumping," which may be a risk for you if you start doing multiple deep dives in close succession. I doubt you have enough gas for that, but you should probably be aware of it.

 

[mike_s]

But with talks of spending $400 just to swim around aimlessly in a POOL for 10 minute bursts.....:headscratch:

 

[scubadude79]

...one can scuba dive in a pool for about 8 minutes on careful breathing.

By careful breathing, I am assuming that you are thinking of skip breathing. Be careful with this one because even in 1 ft of water, this can lead to Carbon Dioxide poisoning if you do not breath normally. Especially important, don't ever hold your breath even from the bottom of a pool. Different people are larger lunged than others, but it is still a better idea to avoid at all costs.

 

[muddiver]

It sounds like you have found a hobby that is exciting you. I applaud you for seeking more information on how to be safe at what you are playing with.

Diving a pool just to be diving is not unusual. I have to find time to keep my hard hat diving skills up and I am a little too far from any oceanside docks to do any real dives. So I to dive the pool here at the community or I dive my gear during the pool portion of the Scientific Diver coures I assist with to get some in water time on occation. Abet I have a larger volume of breathing gas than you are playing with, it is still just a pool dive.

Smaller cylinders in a confined area is also not unusual. I use a 30 cubic foot cylinder with my SCUBA gear to do pool inspections. One could argue that a snorkle is sufficient, but I tire of trying to hold position to get photos to document conditions like cracked plaster, loose light bezels, etc. on snorkle. With a little AL30 I can dive for more than enough time to get the inspection done on a standard size pool and get clear photos because I am stable on the bottom.

So Cool Beans! Have a good time.

 

[ScubaSarus]

Well brandon please let us know how things go and please post back the results. Im eager to know how you do and if what you are planning to do is worth while as fun as you make is sound.

Please do it safely as it sounds like an embolism is quite possible if going in blindly.

 

[brandon429]

All very interesting and helpful responses, thank you!

My micro diving hobby is progressing, I've found a shop that will fill my spare air to max and rent me tanks separately, so I don't have to fill off my rented tank initially which on page two I was shown wouldn't give me a full fill anyway. After having dove about 40 times with this setup on partial fills and still thinking it's fun, a full fill of 10-12 mins seems like real diving eh All this does is add 1 or 2 nice refills to my diving per tank rented, but I have two full tanks to fill from and this is a whole lot of diving because now the first three fills last much longer than what I was used to. My most recent 'sales' interaction to forward the convenience factor was asking a ywca manager to let me lay down my bottle to refill on the floor of his office, so I don't have to run out to the car. now 10 steps from the pool it's not a big deal. I've enjoyed getting a friend of mine back into diving who'd been out for years but was a rescue diver for local sherriff in the 90's. he thinks this is great too, he'd never seen nor heard of a tank/reg this small also, so we spent our time yesterday doing buddy tradeoffs at depth until my second bottle comes in.

I didn't know what skip breathing was but I was interested in this post. By careful breathing I just mean not fully expanded breaths, you know the full 1.6l inspiration. I found with easy swimming I didn't have to breathe 100% each time and after a full day's play shallower breaths made my lungs less sore. I think after not having dived in some years my inclination was to breath slowly but fully/deeply and it was just unnecessary, shallower breaths conserve my air and are easier on my chest.

As far as CO2 toxicity we weren/'t holding breaths other than the one second to tradeoff/purge and hit the regulator upon buddy trading, with no ascents, it was fun to practice this move just for something new. it w be more fun when another tank gets here later, and when diving in the texas tech aquatic facility which is the atlantic ocean of swimming pools I'll want more air. I swear if i strap a third bottle to a leg next month I'll start charting my dives for nitrogen accumulation or I'm sure one of you guys has a detailed excel sheet ready to draw!
B

 

[brandon429]

We're getting ready to leave the pool and hit some natural springs, maybe balmorea Tx. I plan on seeing some new scenery with the devices, but again only for 10 or 15 foot sortees, nothing deep, mainly snorkeling. I am looking for ways to expand my coverage with microscuba in as safe as possible manner, so this protected, nonfished water way is bascially the same thing as a swimming pool but you get to cohort with aquarium fish (there are sailfin mollies at depth!) because it's a spring fed reservoir w a 25 ft max depth...Hope this doesn't start a flame war, but again it's the truth.


Vlad: and I'm not selling this as safe, I was responding to nonspecific safety concerns and a fair mix of sarcasm and helpfullness intertwined over 8 pages, your less discriminating readers could have taken some of that stuff at face value it takes a little time to see if ya'll are ripping me or really saying a fact have patience lol

I came here for you guys to show me how it's unsafe compared to full scuba at the same depths and I have seen many helpful responses that got me to reading endlessly again over the matters. mainly we've argued about cost, depth time, all the stuff I had already considered that has no bearing on safety. really glad I came though, we do the same thing to new/uninformed posters on the reefaquarium boards I consult. good fun for sure

 

[brandon429]

Here's how we are getting ready to go:

we will snorkel together and one will have both tanks strapped in place. any photoshopping you may subsequently provide will pale in comparison to the real picture who wants to bet


the person who dives only gets one bottle's time, the second one is not used for more depth time but as emergency backup, which again I'm thinking isn't necessary in 20 feet but now is truly redundant. I can see using both bottles sequentially if we were sub-snorkeling at like 5 feet just to be underwater, or both of us diving together at a shallow depth well above the bottom which will probably be how most of the time is spent. My thoughts are, the same variables are at play here just like in the aquatics center pool since getting bound up is not a concern. I can wear a dive knife no problem, I have a ready swiss army. jj

 

[brandon429]

I discussed with a shop owner the option to simply rent a slightly overfilled normal tank, say 3500 psi, for about 4 more strong fills per tank rented. I'm also hearing that alum tanks pressed to 3300-3500 psi aren't uncommon, and the tanks I can get at this pressure are exceptionally new and well cared I can see. these are my options so far...you guys think a 33-3500 psi rented tank is terrible?

we filled my spair air off one of these, that's how I got a full fill finally and simply stopped filling when my pressure indicator showed full, *before equilization. no it didn't bulge out as the picture jests in the earlier pages~!

 

[mike_s]

you could always buy a Worthington HP130 (at 3442psi) steel tank to refill your spare air with

just think of the air fills you could get off of that?