Quote: (Originally Posted by
NAVY_MA)
I have been led to believe that a large steel tank while diving wet is a bad idea. Is that not true? Thanks.
In San Diego you will be using pretty thick wetsuits, 5mm minimum 7 mm typical. That will require a far bit of ballast to counter.
The empty buoyancy of a typical al 80 is +4 lbs. The empty buoyancy of most commonly encountered steel tanks is from about neutral to -2.
There are some odd ball steel tanks that are way negative, but not too common, look here
Scuba Cylinder Specification Chart from Huron Scuba, Ann Arbor Michigan
That means switching froma al 80 to most steel tanks will result in about 6 lbs less weight on your belt, but very like you will still have 6-10 lbs on a belt even with a SS plate, reg and Steel tank.
As long as you can swim up your rig with a full bottle after ditching what ever ballast you have in a belt there is no reason not to use a steel cylinder.
The "no steels with a wetsuit in the ocean" is much more a problem with
negative steel doubles, with a pair of PST 104's you'd likely have no ditchable ballast, and could be ~30-36 lbs negative at depth with near full tanks. That's a real problem if your wing fails.
Tobin