New Dive Shop in Town

[LKunze]

I forgot to mention that this is the case except if you get fills at Tri State Diving in Detroit Lakes.  They are the only shop in MN that I know of that will refuse to fill a tank with air if it has a big green nitrox sticker on it.

[Freedive WI]

As an instructor you should know that nitrox isn't just for deeper diving. If your running a bunch of openwater students through ascent training it can make a big difference in the instructors well being to be breathing nitrox the whole time. Of course if your only running a couple of students through a day it may not make as big a difference for you.

Just because you can "only" spear rough fish is no reason to look down on spearguns. > Carp are awesome when smoked properly and your doing the lakes a favor by clearing them out. We also spear drum, which taste very good batter and fried, even if they are "only" a lowly rough fish. Of course if you just bop on over the border to Wisconsin you can spear panfish as well- which will certainly feed the family. Being a hunting and fishing store I would have assumed that you guys knew that, but we all know what happens when you assume.

Good luck getting that compressor up and running- as every manufacturer I know won't sell gear to you unless you have one.

Jon

[DiverQueen]

Remind me to send a note to the folks at Tri-State that atmospheric air that we breathe is just "Nitrox 21%".  Unless they plan to blow 100% O2 into the tank and then fill with air to make your favorite Nitrox level, there should be no difference!
Keep up the good work Grumpie, See you Sunday!

[Roger Southwick]

If a shop doesn't have a "hyper-filtered" (or "O2-compatible") airfill station, they might refuse to fill your nitrox tanks because it would contaminate them.  You'd then need to re-clean the tanks for O2 compatibility before having them filled with nitrox by partial-pressure mixing.  :

[rybonn]

I think what really matters is what the customer is interested in..You may not like spearguns or Nitrox, but there are MANY that do, and as a Dive Center your job is to provide all of these services and many more to please a very broad spectrum of customers. I personally don't like Pink fins, but if you do as a professional, I ll help you make an informed decision on the best pink fins for you out there......

[LKunze]

Yes, I should have mentioned that for partial pressure blending you are supposed to have O2 clean tanks.  I know some that still fill using PP blending without O2 clean tanks or an O2 clean station though.  I guess they do so at their own risk.  I'm told that it's not so much an issue if you fill real slow. The shop that I go to fills with the stick and also banks 32% so it's not an issue under those circumstances.  Same is true for Tri-State diving, they use the stick, or at least they did when I was there 3 or 4 years ago when they refused to fill my tank with air because I had one of the big nitrox bands on my tank.  After that incident I peeled off the idiot stickers and now I just label the contents with duct tape.

[eric myers 2]

Who cares about Nitrox stickers anyways!

If you have one...fine
If you don't have one...fine
If you want one...fine
If you don't want one...fine

I had an large OMS sticker, a Nitrox Sticker, and an American flag sticker on a tank that I have on loan from my father. I recently painted this tank, for rust proofing purposes. In preparation I removed them all.

The American flag sticker was pretty beat up and I felt it would be pretty unpatriotic to leave it there so I removed it in accordance with section 8k of the United States of America flag code which recommends I burn it. So I did just that. I burned it in the company of both a VFW president and a Head Elks Lodge member (note the dual coverage) and I gave a small donation to each as recommended, but not required, by the code.

When I finished painting it, and it really came out good, the tank looked so bare and lonely.  My thought was "hey this tank has been through a lot and it always had an American flag sticker on it, who am I to deprive this tank of its dignity now by striping it of its previous honor as keeper of old glory." 

So I went to Walmart and looked through their 50% 4th of July decorations but could find no such sticker. I gave it about a good 90 second box pattern search then switched to a jackstay but to no avail!  I did however find quite the plethora of buntings, which I considered for a moment but then I decided it would cause to much drag to be tied to my tank. I found no sticker. So I just gave up! Anyways, I got my cheap milk and pop and went home.

When I got home all I could do was sit down and cry...and the milk went bad!

-Eric Myers 

[Freedive WI]

Eric,

Back in the days before nitrox and trimix diving, but a few were doing some home-brewing, one of my  dive buddies, that I did quite a bit of deep-air diving with, found these great "Experimental" stickers at  the EAA convetion. Nothing like going into a backwater dive shop with those on your tanks to raise some eyebrows. 

Jon

[eric myers 2]

I bet! I am sure it doesn't take much. Backwater dive shops...you never know what ya gonna get!

I did have one thought for some of the Nitrox sticker hating previous posters.  I did come up with one good nice advantage of having the sticker. That is when I am on my dad's charter boat and we have 1-2 dozen tanks loaded into the hold (everything from 80's, 100's 120's  AA's, AL's, HP's, LP's, doubles, ponys) it sure makes it easy to select the right cyclinder for a moderate depth dive to have that sticker on the tank!

Now come and get me, Nitrox sticker haters!

Hey Jon, nice to hear from you...what's up?

[Freedive WI]

Getting ready to take a little family vacation to the Vilas county area. Just trying to figure out where I'm going to pack my monofin around all of the kids, bikes, dogs, and toys- not to mention everything my wife has packed. 

There are great lakes up there for diving in, but it is one, of only about 6, counties in the state where you can't spearfish- so no spearguns along on this trip.

Good seeing you at Freedive-A-Palooza, but next year we need to get you in without a tank on.

Jon