Equipment care for FRESH water divers

[Divin'Hoosier]

Most of the threads about equipment care assume that it is used in a salt water environment. What about equipment that is used primarily in fresh water? What do you need to do to your BCD, regs and wetsuit after a weekend of freshwater lake/quarry diving? When I took the PADI Equipment Specialist class, our instructor told us that you don't really need to do much of anything. Just set it out to dry (NOT IN THE SUN!), partially inflate the BC and then put it away. Anybody disagree? Any other suggestions?

[do it easy]

That's pretty much what I do. I'll drain the water out of the bladder, if there is any. I also remove the tank boots to allow the bottoms to dry. Everything else gets hung up in the garage to dry.

If the water was particularly nasty (such as an oil sheen from the chainsaw or goose crap), then I might use a hose and mild soap, but that's pretty rare.

[tstormdiver]

Unless you like the stink, a bit of a fresh rinse on the gear won't do it any harm (especially wetsuits). I hate it when my stuff starts smelling "fishy" and I have to travel any real distance in my car with it PEEWHEW!!!

[meekal]

at least here in sunny FL (usually) when you go FRESH WATER.... they ain't kiddin' - bottled water plant is just down river from ya.... so nothing could be better that a 1 hour rinse in BOTTLED WATER quality water.... but as DO_IT_EASY said, water is water so empty the bladder and remove da boots!

this is of course dependant on your 'flushing' ability while utilizing your PHD. hehehehe - YMMV

[do it easy]

Unless you like the stink, a bit of a fresh rinse on the gear won't do it any harm (especially wetsuits). I hate it when my stuff starts smelling "fishy" and I have to travel any real distance in my car with it PEEWHEW!!!

I usually dive dry, so the stink factor isn't too big a deal. After wet diving, I dunk my wetsuit and booties in the quarry or lake to rinse them. It's usually much easier than the hose.

[cummings66]

I'll add in something I just ran into. I dive a quarry here in MO and recently my reg started acting odd, it would give a mist sometimes when I inhaled and freeflow sometimes when I hit the purge button.

My normal routine is to dry off my drysuit with a towel, get out of it and put it in my box. It's a rubber Viking suit so when you towel it off it's dry. I'll take my BP/W and dump any water in it out and inflate it a bit and stow it for later. My reg I used to just take and hang over my seat and then I'd flush it at home. I never ever missed a rinse of it, nor my gear. First thing I do when I get home or to the motel.

The quarry is about 1.5 hours from home and it's where I dive mostly. I discovered that what happened to my regulator was dirt/crud buildup around the exhaust port which prevented it from working correctly. It was cleaned and serviced for the yearly and now works fine. I believe it needs to be rinsed at the site before I get home because how else could I rinse it every time once home and still have it dirty in that area? So IMO I would always rinse the reg and never let it dry out if you've dove in water around here. Maybe if you dive mines or pristine water it's different but in a quarry I'd rinse it or you will eventually have problems.