Can You Use Diving Oxygen For Snorkeling? Answered

Oxygen dive tanks or scuba tanks are recreational tanks filled with compressed and purified air, the air comprises of 20.9% oxygen.

A diver cannot use pure oxygen while diving it is highly dangerous even when at the shallow part of the ocean it could still kill the diver, this is why the air in the tanks are purified and compressed.

It is known by a lot of people if not all that divers during scuba diving need air to survive for a long period of time while submerged in water.

What they do not know is the human body can handle only certain amount of oxygen.

Proper research has shown that if a diver dives with pure oxygen deeper than 15 to 20 feet they would likely absorb more oxygen than their system can handle.

This would lead to breakdown of the central nervous system from oxygen toxicity.

If this happens, the diver starts convulsing which is the first thing that happens.

This can be rectified if the diver is able to ascend above the depth of 15 to 20 feet.

But so far it has been recorded to be impossible for the diver to do this, while the diver is convulsing they cannot regulate it not to talk of controlling how deep they are in water, divers that experience this in most cases end up drowning.

Pure oxygen is dangerous not only when submerged in water, it can also cause the materials and lubricants used by scuba divers for recreational diving to combust or suddenly explode.

There are unique ways in which divers can touch tanks filled with pure oxygen such as, opening the valves of the cylinder filled with pure oxygen slowly and carefully.

There are people trained to handle the use of pure oxygen in a safe way, this also entails mixes of oxygen above 40 percent.

It is impossible for a diver to have a long career in diving and not encounter pure oxygen, so it is always advisable for the diver to learn the procedures of how to handle pure oxygen.

Divers should also always remember the risks that comes with the use of pure oxygen (combustion and explosion and central nervous system failure from oxygen toxicity) In case they stumble upon a situation where there is no other option but to use an oxygen tank filled with pure oxygen.

Can You Use Diving Oxygen For Snorkeling?

It is unsafe to use a diving oxygen tank or scuba tanks to snorkel, so the answer is no you cannot.

But as far as hypothesis go it is possible to connect your snorkel to an oxygen tank, but there is one major problem for anyone who does this.

That would be you cutting your lifespan short.

Scuba diving oxygen tanks come with a regulator which is usually found at the top, this is there to adjust pressure according to the environmental pressure.

While submerged if you somehow connect your snorkel to your oxygen tank there would be two atmospheres of pressure, which would in-turn allow for air twice as much to enter your lungs with every breath you take.

So if you by some chance manage to connect your snorkel to your oxygen tank and it does work, and you open the tank the entire air in the tank would find its way into you killing you almost immediately, remember this concept of attaching your snorkel to your oxygen dive tank successfully is all hypothetical.

Snorkeling:

As a diver when snorkeling, you make use of a snorkel to breathe air from the surface of the water while your face is in the water observing the wonders of see life accompanied with goggles for clear vision and swim fins for easy and better movement.

This is the regular amount of oxygen that the body takes in, not pure oxygen like those in some oxygen dive tanks.

Scuba Diving:

This is an underwater activity that requires specific equipment like swimsuits, oxygen dive tanks, swim fins among other things.

Some scuba divers do go along with their snorkel when diving so they can swim to the shallow part of the ocean and still have their head submerged in water while breathing through the snorkel without having to use their oxygen tanks.

Note that the snorkel is not in any way connected to their oxygen tank or their oxygen tank regulator.

I have not encountered the word diving oxygen, only oxygen dive tanks and as I explained earlier it is a recreational filled with compressed and purified air used for deep see diving.

This is what recreational divers make use of or a mixture which comprises of helium, nitrogen, oxygen, and argon.

Never forget that pure oxygen in depths below 15 to 20 feet is extremely dangerous, it is in fact fatal.

Photo by: Laya Clode on Unsplash