Which tank to buy my wife- 80cf or 63cf?

[Fourseventeen]

about to go buy my wife a new aluminum tank. debating to buy her a 63cf or an 80cf. The reason....shes small. 110lbs and 5'6. Thinking of getting her a 63 to save her a little weight and the extra length of tank that hangs down.

Any cons to buying her a 63 for local diving here in AZ. When we use rental tanks I go down to 1000psi and she has about 1400psi left in hers. Should I buy her a 63 or stick to the standard 80 and make her deal with the added bulk/weight?

Advice from woman is ideal or men with a lot of dive experience. Thank you.

[joystershell]

I like the AL 63's for beach diving, saves my back from lugging around the larger, heavier tanks. But for diving the deeper wrecks and reefs, I prefer to dive with AL 80's. You just never know when somebody may get into trouble, and having the extra gas on your back could come in handy.

[Fourseventeen]

yeah I think thats the PRO side of this...having the extra gas incase I run out...which is VERY slim chance but you never know. Our local diving is lake...nothing to exciting.
I am also considering buying her an 80 just because a majority of the time when we go vacation diving shes going to end up with an 80 anyway so why not get her use to using the 80. I know she wants the 63 but I am leaning a bit more towards the 80 i think

[joystershell]

Well, for me, it's a no brainer. I'm fortunate to have a garage full of tanks, of all sizes and configurations. So I simply grab what works best for the dive I'll be doing.

[Fourseventeen]

If I lived in Florida I to would have a garage full of scuba goodies lol. BUT here in AZ there isnt much diving around and not any good diving so we have to fly places to dive and rent tanks when we get there. I just want to have a tank for her so we can keep practicing skills in the lake or pool when we cant get out to dive destinations.

[Straegen]

What about an HP80 for her and at some point and HP100 for you? Don't know if you need weight on your belt but this would pull some weight off the belt, give you both about 20% more time down and give you both shorter tanks. The only real rub is that they are MUCH more expensive. If this is a practice thing, I would stick with AL80 so she gets used to what she will likely be diving away from home.

[Fourseventeen]

yeah these tanks will rarely get used. Mainly just for pool use with the occasional single tank lake dive to keep skills fresh. If we lived near the ocean I would buy use both HP steel tanks but for what we are using these for I cant justify that cost.

[scubafanatic]

Most rental/tourist tanks (in the Western Hemisphere at least) are either AL 80's or AL 63's, and AL 63's are reasonably common. I'd get her the AL 63 as that's what SHE wants, and you can pretty much get AL 63's in all the places that offer AL 80's. She can keep up with you in air consumption even if she's on the AL 63 and you're on an AL 80, and if she's unhappy diving and gets annoyed/pissed off, you'll likely end up with TWO AL 80's of your very own while she sits at home....seems kinda common sense to me.

[h2oSkier]

Is there any reason you're limiting the options to aluminum?

Like Joyce, my wife and I have a pretty large assortment of tanks. My wife started with AL63's and I don't think she's touched them since she bought a pair of HP80 steel tanks.

The characteristics and physical size of an HP80 would likely be ideal for your wife. As a bonus she'd be able to drop 5-6 pounds of lead.

Worthington HP 80: 19.7" tall, 28# empty, buoyancy full/empty -9.0, -3.0
Catalina AL63: 21.7" tall, 27.5# empty, buoyancy full/empty -2.8, +1.8

[scubafanatic]

...while I'm a big fan of 'steels', the reality of the world is they're rare in rental/tourist situations and mostly you're gonna get AL 80s/63s, might as well accept that !

[Mike Boswell]

By my reckoning, your wife uses about 80 percent as much air as you do (1600/2000=0.80) and a 63 cu. ft. tank has about 81 percent of the air in an 80 (63/77.4=0.81) so in theory the two of you would end a dive with the same amount of pressure in your tanks.

Her 63 tank would be about 6 lbs lighter and 4" shorter and this would be a plus for her.

With the same pressure in your tanks at the end of the dive, she would only have 80% as much air as you, but she only uses 80% as much, so normally that would be fine too.

Your rock bottom pressure will need to account for the smaller tank. You will want to plan for the possibility that you run out of air. She should have enough reserve in her tank to get you both to the surface.

[oceanbound]

i'm fairly small and love my AL63s. I prefer them to anything else. but I know that when I am traveling somewhere i can't take my tanks I know i normally will have 80's as rentals so long as it's a dive off a boat i'm fine. As for running out of air, my bottom time usually runs out before my air does in the Gulf. In the springs I can do a 60 minute dive depending on how deep we go. so don't fall into the trap of thinking she'll have less air. I'm usually my buddies "pondy bottle" if needed. but your wife needs to decide for herself. I am only 5'3". you said your wife was a few inches taller. she might prefer the 80s.

[aquaregia]

Quick math:
Your AL80/1000psi end-of-dive gives you 25cf reserve. Assuming you wanted to maintain that, you'd need to stop at either AL80/1000psi or AL63/1625psi.
In your scenario, you've used roughly 52cf of air and your wife has used 41cf of air. 41cf of air comes out to AL63/1034psi, which gives you only about two-thirds of the reserve gas that you had before.
So basically, if you're comfortable dropping your reserve, or cutting your dive time, you're golden.

[spectrum]

If the 63 for her matches your AL80 consumption then it sounds like the way to go. The more comfortable she is the more diving you will both do. If you up the ante with a 100 for yourself latter then she gets the 80. Better yet if you do become more locally active is HP steel.

Pete

[stargost]

Fourseventeen,

Try to test all the different version of tanks. I rushed and bought my wife a steel HP80, and it ended up being a mistake. I wanted to save her the weight compared to my HP100, but eventually, it is not really much saving, and the weight distribution and the fact these tanks are short end up not being the best solution.

Someone advised a LP72, and i may get one. So far, adoption of the HP100 has become the best choice when diving BP/W. With a BCD, the 80 is okkish, still not as good.

[deepstops]

I'm just throwing this out there, Hymark makes an AL72 that's very nice and myself, I'm a big fan of Faber LP85 :)

[Graeme Tolton]

We can't tell you what to buy... have her try different tanks in the pool and find out what best suits her. You never know, your style of diving may change and you will want longer bottom times.. Deeper wrecks, etc... Think about what kind of diving you might want to do in 5 years and base your purchase on that. A few years ago, i scrapped my old luxfer 80's that no one will fill anymore and bought 2 new worthington hp119's. Dove them single for a couple years and found that they didn't give me enough gas for some of the dives I was doing... So, I got a manifold and bands.. Now I have plenty of gas all the time.. But I had planned on doubling them up when I bought them.

[halocline]

I far prefer AL63s to AL80s, just in terms of trim and carrying them around. If you can find a LP72 in decent shape, that's a nice tank to dive with, 26LBs carry weight which is about the same as the 63, and you'll have more gas than the 63. The buoyancy of the two tanks is pretty similar, LP72s are more or less neutral empty and I think 63s are about +2.

IMO AL80s have very little going for them except they're cheap.

[Fourseventeen]

Our LDS doesnt rent anything buy AL80's so shes never had the opportunity to try anything but that. They do sell both AL80 and AL63 as well as 3 sizes of steel. While I really like the steel tanks personally they are just to costly for what we are going to use them for. If I lived on the coast somewhere then I would def buy us both steel tanks and ditch the AL tanks. BUT since 90% of our diving is vacation diving and the other 10% of diving is either done in the local lake on a single tank dive (this lake there is NOTHING to see) or in our home pool just so we can keep brushing up on the important skills and our buddy signals. In reality these tanks will probably get filled maybe 20 times in a year. They wont get much use thus the reason I didnt want to go steel for these tanks. We ended up picking her up an AL80 Catalina tank this evening. She got black and wants to order the pink mesh tank protector and the pink boot for it lol.

[Angry Turtle]

.... I know she wants the 63 but I am leaning a bit more towards the 80 i think

It is HER tank, buy what she wants and you both will be MUCH happier.

Only present her with your opinion why she should go with one or the other.

My wife who is of similar build, dives with HP steel 80's and LOVES them.

Earlier this month in our Bonaire vacation the aluminum 63s where a second best, but VERY much prefered over the al 80s.

[Angry Turtle]

yeah these tanks will rarely get used. Mainly just for pool use with the occasional single tank lake dive to keep skills fresh. If we lived near the ocean I would buy use both HP steel tanks but for what we are using these for I cant justify that cost.

Then don't even second guess her, go straight to the 63.

[awap]

My wife loves our 63s. The one good thing when she decides not to dive with me is I get to use the 63's.

[aquaregia]

We ended up picking her up an AL80 Catalina tank this evening.

I think that's probably a good move. If 90% of your diving is with AL80s, it'd be good to have a similar "practice" tank.

[Fourseventeen]

I think that's probably a good move. If 90% of your diving is with AL80s, it'd be good to have a similar "practice" tank.

yup that was my reasoning behind the tank size purchased. most of the places I have been to that had rental tanks, they were almost all AL80

[Damselfish]

63s are nice for some of us. Lighter is nice, I don't need the extra air and I like that it's not hitting me either in the head or the butt. So I would have gotten her a 63, if she said she wanted a 63. (If I wanted a 63 and my husband decided I should have an 80 I'd be annoyed and exchanging it the next day. ;) )

If you travel someplace tropical they often will have some 63s, probably much more so than you find at home. And even if she gets used to an 80 at home, enough things will be different when traveling (salt vs fresh water for one thing) I don't think being used to one or the other of those is a huge advantage. And even if they only have 80s, in many places you won't need to haul the tanks anyway.