Purchase own tanks?

I hope this is not a dumb question but I'll ask anyway. My brother lives in South Florida and most divers have told him they own their own tanks to save money. Since most dive trips are 2 tank dives do divers that bring their own tanks bring 2 apiece??? I'm guessing they must since the 2 boats I went out on in FL did not have onboard compressors. I just don't see the advantage of investing 200 each (for steel at least) for a total of 400 and then have to pay to get yearly inspections and hydros every 5. Any thoughts from the community?

I like my steel. If I rent I get aluminum Which in warm water is fine, when I am wearing my 7mm or drysuit I want steel since I take 26 lbs of lead with my steel 120 i would take 30+ with and al80. In the keys I use 12 lbs of lead with a 3mm or shorty which I would only use 4 lbs of lead with my 120. Just a matter if you want to use lead or a steel tank.

PS. I dive enough 50+ local dives a year that it pays for me to own my tanks.

I dive a drysuit too and take my HP100s on local boats rather than use their AL80s. Advantages: less weight, 20% more air and a DIN connector for my reg. Definately, worth it to me.

Grey_Wulff

yeroks:

I just don't see the advantage of investing 200 each (for steel at least) for a total of 400 and then have to pay to get yearly inspections and hydros every 5. Any thoughts from the community?

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If you can get them for $200 each go ahead and buy them.

It all depends on how much diving you or your brother do or plan to do.If you dive weekly a few times each time,then it probably is a good investment.If you dive once or twice a year then its a different story.
Also,it like everything else.I own my own tanks and know the service record and maintainance records etc.You cant say that about a rental because you never know.The only time I dont take my tanks is if I go out of country.

I have always owned my own tanks because I dive enough locally to justify it. I like steel better too! It's worth it in the long run.

One approach is to do the math on the buy vs. rent.

Lets assume the following:

You do a two-tank dive and rent two singles at a cost of $15 each from Fill Express in FL for a total of $30

Use your $200 purchase price per cylinder for a total outlay of $400.

We can divide the $400 by $30 and see the break even number of dives is approx. 14 however, we are not accounting for the purchase price of the gas in your own tanks for each and every dive.

Soooo for simplicity assume the fills are $5 per tank for a total of $10 each time you dive.

After 20 dive trips it would cost you $600 to rent the tanks or ($400 + (20 X $10)) = $600 to purchase and fill them.

(I dropped the $25 - $35 hydro every 5 years and the $15 - $20 VIP to keep things simple and this cost will go away if you dive at least 2 time per year after the 20 dive trips)

Bottom line – If you plan to dive more than 20 times then purchasing is the way to go.

You also have to calculate in the fact that you can sell them when you are done w/ them.

I dont want to comment to much on this since there are so many other posts but here is my experience with tanks:

After taking my ow course I waited until last summer to get gear and I did what many new divers do and got the gear that my instructor was using or at least most of it and I made the mistake of not going online and researching first so now I want almost a completly different setup. Take that for what you will but anyway.

Last june I got 4 matching aluminum 80's w/valves (for like $140 each) from LP and put about a 4 or 5 dives on each one but after all the buoyancy issues associtated with aluminum tanks I am looking to sell all 4 and get a pair or more of hp-100 steel tanks. My aluminum tank in combination with my 7mill 2 piece henderson hyperstretch wetsuit w/ gloves, hood, and boots takes 33 lbs of lead to sink me!

Now I want to grow into some different tank configurations and take on the DIR diving techniques so getting tanks right away for me was a waste of money and not researching was even worse.

I have tanks that cost me about $600 +/- and if I sold them I might get $350 for all of them so I made a mistake.

I didn't pay attention to what valves I was getting and LP gave me 3 different styles but I didn't know what was good so I didn't care but do your research on valves also cause they are just as important.

Best advice I can give is read up before you buy but definitely buy because renting in my opinion is more expensive and more of a hassle in the end.

I did about 80 dives last year, and will do more than 100 this year. Work the math.