What regulators for hookah diving?

[Rich Keller]

I'm intrigued. Do tell more. I was looking at the setup at a local dive shop for $300 that has a 50 ft hose, 1st & 2nd stage regulators, but it looks like the cheap yellow octopus regulator.

Go to your local welding supply and buy a 50' oxygen hose with female oxygen fittings, 2 replacement female fittings and 2 double end male oxygen fittings. Cut the hose between your first and second stage and put the replacement fittings on each end of the hose you cut then you can use the male fittings to connect the 50' hose between the first and second stages. You will want to tape a life line to the hose that connects to your harness or belt and to something in the kayak. This will have you pulling the kayak by the line not the hose. The hose should cost about $50 and maybe another $15-20 for the fittings.

 

[knowone]

What does welding O2
hose weigh these days

 

[quatin]

Go to your local welding supply and buy a 50' oxygen hose with female oxygen fittings, 2 replacement female fittings and 2 double end male oxygen fittings. Cut the hose between your first and second stage and put the replacement fittings on each end of the hose you cut then you can use the male fittings to connect the 50' hose between the first and second stages. You will want to tape a life line to the hose that connects to your harness or belt and to something in the kayak. This will have you pulling the kayak by the line not the hose. The hose should cost about $50 and maybe another $15-20 for the fittings.

Awesome. Thanks for the info. I'm going to buy the Brownie set, but I'll check out your instructions to make a splitter hose.

 

[quatin]

How will you know how much air you have left

This is a good point. Aside from coming up often to check the pressure. Would a dive computer or perhaps an underwater watch with timer be a good idea? I know nothing can truly replace a pressure gauge, but I don't intend on going very deep with this setup (perhaps 20 feet). A 120cc tank should give me plenty of downtime right?

 

[Rich Keller]

This is a good point. Aside from coming up often to check the pressure. Would a dive computer or perhaps an underwater watch with timer be a good idea? I know nothing can truly replace a pressure gauge, but I don't intend on going very deep with this setup (perhaps 20 feet). A 120cc tank should give me plenty of downtime right?

Figure on breathing a cubic foot of air per minute on the surface then adjust for the depth. Average person is good for about 3/4 of a cubic foot at rest. Then give yourself a safety margin on top of that and time the dive. You can also breath the tank dry if you have a bailout bottle on your harness then go up when you run out of air. With experience you will notice the change in how you regulator breaths as you get low on air and come up before you need to go over to your bailout.

 

[quatin]

Figure on breathing a cubic foot of air per minute on the surface then adjust for the depth. Average person is good for about 3/4 of a cubic foot at rest. Then give yourself a safety margin on top of that and time the dive. You can also breath the tank dry if you have a bailout bottle on your harness then go up when you run out of air. With experience you will notice the change in how you regulator breaths as you get low on air and come up before you need to go over to your bailout.

We practiced the out of air drill in the pool session, where the instructor turned off our tanks underwater. I could barely feel the difference up until the hose went empty. The bail out bottle sounds like a good idea. What do you guys think of the "Spare Air" product line?

 

[RonFrank]

I think you will find that scuba gear is weightless UW. You may also discover having a line attached is very restrictive and cumbersome. What is so horrible about scuba? I think the hookah sounds cool but maybe not for lobster diving. Lobster diving requires moving around quite a bit. :cool2:

Spare air... having it is a good thing. Does spare air work for divers? Do a bit of reading on spare air. A CF 14 or 19 is IMO a better option.

 

[quatin]

I think you will find that scuba gear is weightless UW. You may also discover having a line attached is very restrictive and cumbersome. What is so horrible about scuba? I think the hookah sounds cool but maybe not for lobster diving. Lobster diving requires moving around quite a bit. :cool2:

Spare air... having it is a good thing. Does spare air work for divers? Do a bit of reading on spare air. A CF 14 or 19 is IMO a better option.

Underwater, it was more about the bulkiness. I feel out of balance and slow with all that gear. I did hear the hookah system is bad in choppy water, where the waves will yank you off the reef, but I'm too new to be diving in choppy weather anyways. Advice noted on the spare air. I had my reservations about the tank size too, but it seemed like strapping on a big pony tank defeated the purpose of going the hookah route.

I just noticed that all the hookah systems have octopus regulators. Is there a reason for this?

 

[Waterwulf]

I am in the process of converting my SCUBA gear over to SNUBA/Hookah. I bought a fifty foot air hose that just replaces the hose between the first and second stage. I'm doing the same setup with my kayak as my "surface base" to carry my tank, dive flag, etc. I have not yet tried it out but have conducted some experiments.

Where you attach the hose to on the Kayak makes a huge difference. Mine runs right over the bow with a clip to keep it in place plus my Kayak has a rudder so it tends to follow me bow first for better streamlining. Just letting it dangle from the tank resulted in the kayak going sideways plus it put a lot of strain on the hose end fitting.

There is no easy feasible way to monitor tank pressure from forty feet away (Will computer tele-link hook ups go that far?) so I just plan on using my watch. I do have a Intermediate Pressure gauge setup on my rig to monitor the pressure in the line at my end. Like I said: I have not tried it for real yet but it seems like it should give some indication of a pressure loss. It would take a few breaths to empty a fifty foot hose of air at 140psi.

I do have an Octopus on mine but it's more for guests than emergencies. (Great Grandson) I have a small bail out bottle on my rig for real emergencies but it's only thirty feet or so to the surface.

I plan on diving a lot of freshwater springs with my setup and they're cold so I'll be wearing a wetsuit. Weights will be required so I decided to set mine up with my trusty Horse Collar BC upgraded with a power inflator. I figure why not be comfortable.

It will feel a lot more free than SCUBA but remember: You can drown just as quick. Taking and holding a breath and surfacing from 33 feet on SCUBA or SNUBA/HOOKAH will have the same result.

You'll get some flak from persons who frown on SNUBA/HOOKAH saying it's not real SCUBA. Well, they're right! It's not. So what?