Nitrox fills

[jasondbaker]

Fred, thanks for soliciting an opinion from PSI.

Corey (PSI), thanks for responding. While I appreciate your response I question your somewhat negative view regarding Internet forums. Hundreds of MN, WI, and ND divers and most regional diveshops participate on the mnscuba.com forum. We are not a typical forum. We represent some of the most active and probably most “aware” divers in the area.

I started this thread because I was genuinely interested in finding out the answer to the question: Can you put air in a tank with a nitrox sticker on it? I believe the responses have been inquisitive, humorous, fair, opinionated, and in some cases inaccurate. But in every debate you have to take the reasonable and the unreasonable, and hopefully learn to recognize the difference. I would be hard pressed to characterize any of the thread replies as vicious. Corey, you may be personalizing these responses a bit. Look at this as an opportunity to educate. The information in this forum is more visible to MN divers than the information on the PSI website.

PSI has positioned itself as an authority on SCUBA and SCBA and actively participates in public policy decisions. I think that makes PSI’s policies fair game for open debate.

While the opportunity to take a PSI course sounds inviting, I don’t think that provides the proper forum for an open debate regarding PSI policy. The teacher-student relationship within a class does not facilitate this type of discussion. The mnscuba.com forum provides the optimal technology and location for debate.

I read and re-read your response several times. Your response cleared up several questions for me. Thank you. I would still like to learn more about the internal PSI debate on premix versus partial pressure nitrox tank designations. I don’t think we have a complete answer to the “air in a nitrox tank” question. Assuming we have a clean source of air and that this source is meticulously maintained, what prohibits a dive shop from putting air in a nitrox tank? The answer that it is against PSI policy is not clear since I’m not sure PSI policy equates to a legal regulation in this case.

I hope that PSI chooses to respond and chooses to educate.