Have you ever learned or done analyzing your air? (no nitrox, not against CO)

[nickbutcher]

I always analyse any gas that I'm intending to breath.

99.9 times out of 100, this just confirms what I suspected or asked for but...
I once watched an oxygen rebreather tank being filled from a whip attached to an O2 cascade. When I analysed it, it came out at 72%. One of the other cylinders hooked-up to the whip turned-out to contain air after having been tested and this contaminated my cylinder when the whip was equalised.

I'm pretty sure that I'd have figured out what was going on once I'd started diving and switched to a high set point but it would have ruined a dive.

 

[Germie]

I always analyse any gas that I'm intending to breath.

99.9 times out of 100, this just confirms what I suspected or asked for but...
I once watched an oxygen rebreather tank being filled from a whip attached to an O2 cascade. When I analysed it, it came out at 72%. One of the other cylinders hooked-up to the whip turned-out to contain air after having been tested and this contaminated my cylinder when the whip was equalised.

I'm pretty sure that I'd have figured out what was going on once I'd started diving and switched to a high set point but it would have ruined a dive.

But you are a technical diver. The same could happen with an tank that has to be filled with air. But I see a lot of (beginner) recreational divers that really don't know about oxygen.

When you started diving, you did the same? Was analyzing teached?

 

[Divin'Papaw]

I learned in Nitrox class and beyond (technically training through normoxic trimix) and I analyze every tank to confirm the contents. I now also analyze for CO.

 

[nickbutcher]

When you started diving, you did the same? Was analyzing teached?

No, and I completed the poll to reflect that.

I learned to dive in 1986. I'd never heard of nitrox back then.

 

[Chavodel8en]

Most of my dives are local shore dives where I dont get deeper than 50 feet or so. So I breath air and trust the LDS that that is what Im breathing.

I went 15 years and almost 200 dives not trained on Nitrox, just because its not something I really needed. But I do remember diving the Sea Tiger in Oahu on vacation and wishing I had Nitrox. So I finally got Nitrox trained during the pandemic. Learned to analyze for oxygen levels.

Since then I've had a grand total of 2 dives using Nitrox (on vacation in Oahu again). If I had to analyze oxygen level right now ... I'd have to google to brush up on it.

Never have analyzed for anything else.

 

[Belzelbub]

I have my own analyzer, so if it's a tank that I'll have at home, I'm going to analyze it.

The only exception is when I use the aquarium tanks at the aquarium. They only have a compressor, so no opportunity to get anything other than regular air. Plus, max depth there is a bit over 22'.

 

[rick00001967]

i was never taught anything about analyzing gas until i took my nitrox course. and even then we never had any discussions about analyzing any tanks other than nitrox.

when i took my cavern course in mexico, the instructor and i checked each tank we had with us prior to gearing up. it was common there to have partially filled tanks topped up. so the mix would vary from day to day.

our local shop regularly provides tanks labelled for nitrox that only contain air. i have never seen anyone analyze any of those tanks......ever.

 

[boulderjohn]

When technical diving, every tank gets analyzed, of course.

With recreational (NDL) diving, I pretty much always dive nitrox, so every tank gets analyzed. When I dived with Beqa Lagoon Resort in Fiji earlier this year, they wanted us to accept whatever they told us was in the tank, but my friends and I insisted on analyzing our own, and they did get us an analyzer for each trip.

A lot of shops in places without a real market for nitrox simply don't have the ability to make it, so it's a pretty safe bet that their tanks will have air in them. The shop I used to work for when I was still instructing could only make nitrox if I made it for them, so there was no point in testing.

 

[Brett Hatch]

I'm not trained in tech, and don't do tech dives. The only thing I learned in my OW course was how to identify nitrox tanks (big green-and-yellow bar sticker), and not to dive those tanks under any circumstance until I was trained on nitrox. Which, looking back, I find to be an acceptable level of instruction for basic OW course. If I ran the world, nitrox would be part of basic OW training, but I don't, so it's not.

I took the nitrox course as an add-on to my AOW course. I was instructed to always analyze a tank that is labelled for nitrox, regardless of what fill I asked for, or what fill I paid for. I think that's good advice. Since all of my own tanks are labelled for nitrox, and most of my fills are nitrox, I analyze them every time. When I dive other people's tanks, I always analyze them if an analyzer is available, even if they supposedly contain air.

I've never encountered a wildly different fill (asked for 32%, got 100%), but I have heard of such cases, and am wary of them. I have gotten fills off by a few percent (ask for air, tank contained 32%, topped off with air, end up with 25%). Cases like that aren't nearly as dangerous. And the MOD difference between 25% and 21% has never bitten me, but I do label the tank and set my computer accordingly.

 

[JMBL]

Was open water certified in 1990. At that time in France, Nitrox was unheard of, except maybe for a few very advanced cave divers, the military and commercial divers and the name was then "Surox" (short for 'sur oxygéné', roughly translated 'over the normal O level').

So, never analyzed any tank before getting Nitrox certified in 2000. Since then, if air is only available, I don't check the content.

If any other mix than air is provided, I check every tank I get.