nereas
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sounds like im screwed with those tanks.....
Exactly.
Wetsuit diving involves making sure you are not overly dependent on your wing, since you do not have a back-up buoyancy device such as a drysuit. Thus, wetsuits are normally combined with aluminum tanks, for safety. Aluminum tanks are not as negative when full, and they act as an elevator when close to empty.
Wetsuits and steel tanks are not a good idea together, unless you also get a double-wing or a dual-bladder wing to go with it. This at least gives you redundancy for the wing. Although it is still not completely safe.
However, 300bar has pointed out in other threads that the Dutch dive the North Sea with wetsuits and steel tanks all the time, and they are not dying in droves there either. This fallacy however is one of popular appeal, since what the Dutch are doing in Dutchland has nothing to do with your safety in the PNW. I cannot say whether the North Sea has walls and canyons?
And you need to imagine yourself in your wetsuit at a depth where suit compression has eliminated your suit buoyancy. And you must be able to ditch enough lead to become neutrally buoyant in case of a wing failure.
Wings do not fail that often. But you don't want your life to depend on a remote possibility either.
There is a lot of talk about "kicking up." Few people however have ever tried doing this. It is certainly not easy. And if you were on a wall, and you could not do it, then the descent into oblivion would be unstoppable. And this does happen to divers, although mostly when they are narked and out of air and too deep, all at the same time.