Pony attached to main cylinder or No?

[riverdiver]

I dive with a pony on every dive, and it is mounted to my main tank. I also dive with a Sheriff dive team and we all dive pony's, but we have bcd that hold the bottles. If you sling it, it will be in the way, that is if you are have a recreation bcd. If you have a tech bcd that will be back inflated and are made to use a sling. Also if you have a pony bottle on your back that is a back up bottle. When you sling a bottle that is a sling bottle and you would use it for deco gas. I sling a al 80 sometimes to fill my lift bag.

 

[r2t]

It's a personal option. Try them both and decide for yourself. I have my pony, mounted on my main tank, never had a problem works great for me.

Ron L.

 

[buckeye_jeff]

Get yourself an AL 40 and sling it, then you'll have a setup that you can use as a deco bottle if you need one.

 

[fl-diver]

I understand most of the arguments for slinging and tank mounting but I think a more important thing to consider is what else you have to bring with you on a dive.
Here in South Florida many of us use tank mounted pony (bailout) bottles because we are hunting. Whether it be lobster hunting or spearfishing or both, there is a lot of gear involved. I think having the pony secured behind you is actually less of a tangle hazard in this case.
I personally turn the pony on and leave it on and just check the pressure (button gauge) before dives. I also take a "test breath" along the way.
One major difference with this setup is I don't intend to pass off my pony to any other divers. I always follow NDL limits and will be happy to air share and even switch to the pony myself if necessary. Unfortunately I got to test this a few weeks ago and it worked fine.
One important thing to consider is that if you want to donate a pony bottle you will need to not consider it part of your weight setup and need to "overweight" yourself which I do not like to do.

 

[CJM]

Well thanks to all of you for the responses. Definitely good info here. I just have to make a decision now.

 

[4sak3n]

Ok.. so it seems there is some people who like and dislike the idea of attaching a pony to your main cylinder. I am in the market for a pony bottle and was going to get the pony tamer with it to secure it to my main cylinder. I have been told by a couple peole thats a bad idea and yet I have seen some do it and say it's good. So I'm looing for some opinions. Pros, cons?? I just find it cumbersome to clip the bottle to my BCD and have it hang on my side. Any thoughts or suggestions is welcome please.

It's a personal option. Try them both and decide for yourself. I have my pony, mounted on my main tank, never had a problem works great for me.

Ron L.

I just want to re-emphasize what Ron L said here and encourage you to try both. What you wrote in your first post leads me to think that you either have never tried a sling or had it set up incorrectly because a slung pony is anything but cumbersome. It is easy to see why you might think that but honestly, it isn't.

I dive with a 40 cft ally slung on a lot of my dives and I quite literally forget it is there. On one dive the DM kept asking me whether I was okay and he never seemed to ask any of the other divers. I wondered whether he knew he was asking the same diver over and over again and thought that he might have me confused with someone else. Of course this was impossible because I was the only person with a bright yellow tank floating along next to him. It just goes to show that I was so comfortable with it that I had almost forgotten about it.

Anyway, back on topic I just want to encourage you to try out both ways and give both a fair chance. If your impression about the slung pony being cumbersome can be so wrong, think what else you might be mistaken about. The only way to truly find out is try both.

 

[ba_hiker]

I have a pony and started using it with a pony tamer mount to my tank. The setup worked well, but I mostly dive from boats and change my tank several times during an outing. This did not work too well with the pony tamer. Not that I was difficult to remount it between dives, just that it was another thing to do.

So I switched to slinging it. I have a 40ft tank that I sling, so the 19ft pony seemed natural. Just trying this out, but dont see why it would be more problem than a bigger bottle. The only problem slinging, so far, was one exit where i was dumped on the (rocky) beach and landed on the pony...

Given the 'finesse' of that exit i could have landed on the pony where ever it was mounted...

 

[moneysavr]

Many thoughts to it old Great Lake divers straped it to tank (30-40) cuft, in the on position,long hose with necklace around your head,pressure gauge clipped to opposite hip,
thing is a pony dose add extra weight if your boat diving and splash in its ok but a shore dive wow lots of weight, I do strap my pony to tank on deep dives with shooting video I just cant have all the crap in my way,
slung is OK then hell bring a 80 down,
many thoughts on it all are good and do what works for you.
back up gas that is available all the time with no thought to it is a no brainer!
I for one don't subscribe to having valves off,First man all the crap / salt water that can and will leak into regs 1st stages,second stages even if prior pressure thrown on them don't sit well with me and common sense having rebuilt a reg or two.
second as it only takes one second -one mouthful of water and mans primeval reactions take over and well your dead all the training in the world don't work then.
so have some sort of back up air slung or hung its a great life insurance policy-but don't use it to run long dives or deco unless properly trained by a certifying agency and well then your past pony's and up to the big old doubles nut busters!
Dive safe,* ONLY MY 2 CENTS WORTH *IMO*
Brad

 

[bane51031]

use a bag or get something like the Zeagle straps which hook onto your tank bands, I use these and the pony bottle is mounted solid and I can pull out the bottle if needed to hand off etc...

 

[Gilldiver]

I used a strapped on pony for many years. What I had was a 30 or 40 that was strapped on using two cam band straps like are used for the main tank. It works real well and is very solid. I made my straps up from weight belt web, a cam band, and some Velcro to keep the tail end neat.

For the past 10 years or so I sling it as it is just easier and it solves one problem that no one has so far touched on - Telling the pony 2nd stage from your main one. Back in the day a diver would have 2 seconds from their doubles and a 3rd second stage from the pony all located around their necks. We saw a number of near misses and deaths from divers jumping in on the pony reg getting to the bottom running out of gas, panicked, and ........

What became common was to have the 3 second stages physical deferent. The ones from the doubles would be Poseidon, one a Oden (Shower Head) and the other a Thor (the Hockey Puck) and the pony something like a USD SE2.

With slinging a bottle, the pony 2nd stage is on that bottle and can not be confused with you main regulators.