Nitrox?? what is it all about???

whats this Nitrox talk all about? I just starting diving in the past few weeks and am just finishing up my owd cert. I hear talk about using Nitrox to help eliminate nitrogen build up in the body, is there any advantage to a recreational diver? the max depth ive been to is 60 feet, I wont go much deeper then that for a few months when i take my AOW diver cert. any help is appreciated. also whats the price diffrence between regualr air and nitrox enriched air? I pay 3.00 bux per fill for my 80. thanks

Nitrox is generally a gas mixture that has an oxygen percentage different than regular air. Enriched air generally refers to a gas mixture with higher oxygen content than regular air (which has approx. 21% oxygen).

Diving with enriched air will allow you greater no decompression time than breathing regular air at the same depth. It will not allow you to dive deeper, as there are other factors (oxygen exposure) that you have to be concerned with which are generally not a concern when breathing regular air. In fact, higher percentage enriched air such as eanx36 (i.e. 36% oxygen)will limit you maximum depth to around 90 feet.

The diving itself is no different than breathing regular air. You just have to be able to plan the dive properly given the mix that you are using and to take special precautions on the equipment you use and how you get/verify your nitrox fills.

the "Search" button! Plenty of information out there on this one...

Basically for recreational stuff there are two schools of thought:
1) Extend your NDL
2) Reduce amount of nitrogen intake as you say

The two are not necessarily inter changeable....:boom:

If you are at 60 feet and a new diver chances are your air consumption won't give you much benefit on the first....

My advice would be - don't worry about it for now, get out there and dive!

Jonathan

But I dive it anytime I'm going below 60 feet. When you increase the Oxygen from 21% as in air to 32% in the most common EANx blend, you have that much less Nitrogen in your breathing gas, therefore less Nitrogen loading, therefore about 50% more bottom time below 60 feet. There are other possible pluses, as many divers say they feel better after diving Nitrox as compared to air, but that's open to discussion.

The cons include increased prices, which vary greatly, and the small risk of Oxygen Toxidity. It's condered generally safe for divers who don't cross the conservative limits suggested in recreational Scuba, but things can go wrong.

It would not have helped me when I was new, as I was an air hog even in shallows, and not going deep, but as breathing becomes more efficient and diving gets deeper, it becomes more appealing. There's no rush for you, but I have two suggestions:
(a) When you take the AOW course, see if you can't include Nitrox training on the same dives for just a little more money; and
(b) When you buy a computer, don't even think about buying an Air Only model. You'll want Nitrox soon enough if you keep diving, or - even if you quit, the Nitrox computer will bring twice as much on resell.

Have fun, don

The "feel better after diving" argument is one that runs and runs, im not sure exactly how much quantitative research has been done in this and it may be a placebo effect - ie entirely mental in origin. It may not however.

I know a few divers that are nitrox certified and although they dive it only rarely they dont say it makes any difference to their state after a dive.

Im not nitrox certified (its not practical to use for local diving here as air will do fine) but ive done exactly 1 nitrox dive. The dive centre i used had a spare 15l cylinder filled with EAN33 and since i was the only one diving that afternoon with them i got to use it.
I noticed no less fatigue or anything post dive but a sample of one is worthless

There is also the "dive nitrox on air tables" for an added safety margin. Interestingly however research is suggesting the difference is so small as to be statistically insignificant and therefore may not be worth doing.

Logically you know its decreasing you N2 loading so should be safer however it seems tables/diving is now so "safe" with the number of incidents it doesnt have a real world effect. Due to the small number of incidents any real effect is probably lost due to "statistical noise".
Another fact to back this up is latest reports state that 2/3 of bent divers were diving within NDLs.

These theories could change possibly as i write this post