Setting up gear right.

[Nwcid]

Tank info....How to Select a SCUBA Tank - Dive Gear Express

Be careful about free advice. Unfortunately, some advice you pay for isn't worth much either.
Keep up your research.

Thank you for the link, they are in my bookmarks. I have been though all of that and per my OP we have purchased HP-100's. My point is that I check different sources because with the information I gained here an another local board I know better then what I was told by the local.

[TSandM]

Nwcid, I wholeheartedly agree with you that, if your console is your only source of information about depth and time, you don't want it clipped off where you can't see it. So many of us here put our computer on our wrists, simply BECAUSE we want to be able to see that depth and time (and no deco for some folks) all the time. I would NOT suggest that a diver put his only depth gauge somewhere where he has to unclip it and pull it up to see it. That could get you into a great deal of trouble on dives in places like Cozumel, where there's so much light in the water that you can't always tell you are moving deeper. So you are left with either figuring out where to put a console that you can see it AND it doesn't interfere with any other gear (like the long hose), or going to wrist gauges. When you read the pages on the DIR gear configuration, what you read about is the end product of a lot of evolution like this -- every change you make affects other functionality on your rig, and there are up and downsides to all choices. For right now, you have a console, and I agree that you need to put it somewhere that is visible. Just be aware of the other implications of the choices you make.

Steel versus Al? Al is cheap, the tanks are heavy and they take five more pounds to sink. That's simple physics, and if your friend is trying to tell you something different, he is, quite simply, wrong. Steel is more expensive but reduces the total land weight of your gear. In the water, both kinds of tanks dive fine, although aluminum tanks tend to get butt-light as they empty, something which is far more annoying in the tropics (where you have little weight to use to balance them) than it is around here, where you have all the lead you want to move around

[ddmattos]

Thank you for the link, they are in my bookmarks. I have been though all of that and per my OP we have purchased HP-100's. My point is that I check different sources because with the information I gained here an another local board I know better then what I was told by the local.

The link is for your friend.

As for the console.....try routing the hose under your arm between your chest strap and chest. This will keep the hose from floating and you can position it to be always in view or pull up when needed and push it down out of the way. Hope that makes sense.

[Nwcid]

The link is for your friend.

As for the console.....try routing the hose under your arm between your chest strap and chest. This will keep the hose from floating and you can position it to be always in view or pull up when needed and push it down out of the way. Hope that makes sense.

Aaahhh thanks. Sometimes it is just better to keep your mouth shut and smile.

That is a plan. In the next month or so we will be able to get some more water time so I am hoping to try some of this out.

[Colliam7]

One of the local guys I have been talking to is a dive team member (very small area that is all volunteer). Many of the things I have been hearing from him are very different then the things I have been reading here. The big one that I got me is "there is really no difference between steel and AL tanks for weighting, steel just costs more".

OK, I suspect that something is being 'lost in translation' here. While there really isn't any difference between AL and steel in the sense that they both hold air, although the volume of air may be different, there may be (WILL be) substantial differences in buoyancy and trim characteristics between them. Now, if you go in the water every time significantly overweighted. I guess the case could be made that any differences between steel and AL tanks for weighting would be trivial. The statement that 'steel just costs more' is probably the most accurate part of what the dive team member was telling you.