Deco bottles affecting trim

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Since I dive neutrally buoyant fins, leg positioning does not help as much as with something like a heavier jet fin.

i replaced the four pound weight behind my neck with a two pounder. It seems to be more effective to base my trim with deco/stage bottles rather than without them.

Two al80s on the left was too much to carry based on my no deco/stage trim configuration.
 
So what happens when you drop those bottles or they become empty?

I can’t even...
 
Just trying to echo all the people above me, and add a couple of things.

I struggled with head down trim for a while as well. I wanted to be absolutely perfect - be able to just hold completely still and have literally no movement head/feet/left/right. That led to soooo many dives experimenting with trim weights in various areas and trying to get things exactly right. The thing that made the biggest difference though was loosening the harness. It was like a Eureka moment when I finally did it. People tend to wear it wayyy too tight (even though you don't feel like it's tight on you) and it causes your first stages to sit too high on your back and tip you. Even lowering them 2 inches down your back by lengthening your straps will make a HUGE difference. You can "dive the gear not let the gear dive you" all you want but if you don't have your tanks sitting in the right spot for your center of gravity (everyone is different) no matter what you do you won't be able to get your trim right. Once you get it perfect though, no matter what deco tanks you add or what reels/lights/etc you add, you should be able to use your posture to dive the gear.

A few more things:

1. If you need trim weights, that's normal (I have to use a 4lb tail to get things perfect) but you need to be trimming out your kit without the deco tanks until it is perfect. Like Aj said, what are you going to do when your tanks get low or you have to take them off? Your kit needs to be trimmed out itself perfectly before adding anything else. Then when you add your deco tanks, do not add/move around any trim weight or you are going to be screwed as the deco tanks lose gas or when you need to hang them on a line or leave them somewhere temporarily while on the bottom (which is not unusual at all). Also, if you're having a head down issue, why do you have trim weight up by the valves at all?
2. Get neg buoyant fins if you're having this issue. Yeah jet's are expensive but they rock and help in these situations. Of note, you don't need neg fins to use your posture/legs out to help. extending your legs shifts your overall center of gravity even without neg fins, neg fins just make more of a difference (imagine lengthening a seesaw)
3. If you're still having issues when you add your deco tanks, move your shoulder D ring a little bit down (do not move the waist d ring however or you will make your tank sit too vertical). Moving the first stages of the deco tanks more towards the middle of the chest will help with this problem. You'll be sacrificing deco tank trim to do this but in my opinion if you can't get it to work higher up it's worth it.
4. probably already have this, but a doughnut rather than horseshoe wing would make things easier so you're not getting air trapped on one side or the other here and having to focus on moving air to the other side to trim the tanks out.

Hopefully all this helps. It takes tons of dives and time of just tweaking things ever so slightly over and over until you get it exactly right for you. You really need to be able to use your posture though once you add things so if you don't have the right fins/gear to do that, you need to get it.

You absolutely should be able to trim out two Al 80's on the left. Once your kit is perfect, hand and feet position is going to make a huge difference. Stretch those arms out and lift the hands up a little if you have dry gloves so the air in them helps to keep you from tipping, and extend your legs back to help counter the heavy first stages up front.
 
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Is it the case that you want your harness to be set so that when you add or remove stages you add or remove that negativity at your center of buoyancy - the center of the hole you are punching in the water? And that you must then get yourself trimmed for that harness positioning?

Extending your legs seems only as effective as your lower legs differ from the water in mass. As extending legs shifts your centers of mass and of buoyancy. Its the difference between those changes that makes extending or contracting the legs effective. If they were perfectly neutral, it would clearly have no effect; barring sculling, and it increasing your rotational inertia.

I'm interested in trim, but not accustomed to stages.
 
Yes, you want your harness/kit to be set so that additions/subtractions from it with stages/reels/etc can be compensated for by posture alone rather than needing trim. It would be nice if everything you add/remove only added/removed from the center of gravity but that just won't be the case. But your kit should be perfect without any extras on it.

Even with neutral fins, extending your legs would still make a difference. Imagine a seesaw (see images below). **Warning super over simplified just to get point across** A weight on left 5kg 1m from fulcrum would give you 5 of force. If I add 10kg to the other side 1m away, the only way to balance it again would be to extend the 5kg out to 2m to equal 10 of force to balance it all out. By extending out your legs you would be "extending the seesaw" and helping to compensate (your drysuit/legs/fins aren't completely neutral even with neutral fins, but obviously negative fins makes this a lot more effective which is why you should get them so posture can have more of an effect).

In terms of using posture to help your center of gravity, I tried to draw some crude pictures. Picture one, no stages, center of gravity perfect. Picture 2, add a stage but don't change posture, you can see how it would tip you forward. Picture 3 legs extended out, center of gravity moved back to middle. The next one puts a teal trim weight on the butt instead of extending legs out to move that center of gravity back to middle. With this you see how it's a problem though as when you drop the stage and keep the teal trim weight, the center of gravity is now off center.

Get your kit set right, add your stages, use your posture to help with the addition. If you can't compensate, your kit isn't set up right to begin with and need to play around without the stages more first.
 

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i replaced the four pound weight behind my neck with a two pounder. It seems to be more effective to base my trim with deco/stage bottles rather than without them.
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Since you would be the first person on the planet intentionally putting lead up high behind your head, I think you need a GOOD instructor as soon as possible.
 
Since you would be the first person on the planet intentionally putting lead up high behind your head, I think you need a GOOD instructor as soon as possible.

Although I agree with your intention...that’s just not true. Ever seen a Revo diver?
 
Although I agree with your intention...that’s just not true. Ever seen a Revo diver?
Good point re: CCR divers or some sidemount configurations (in general)

But at least for backmounted doubles, putting a "head weight" on is bizarre.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

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