OX1000 mini scuba tank: one liter of air on your back, about 15 minutes

The OX1000 is for people who have already run out of air halfway through a job. It holds 1 liter at 200 bar, twice the half-liter tanks, which gives around 15 minutes near the surface. It is worn on your back with its harness and an external regulator, so your hands stay free for the work.

What 15 minutes changes

Eight minutes is enough to look. Fifteen is enough to finish.

• A whole prop and shaft. Cleaning every blade, the hub, the shaft and the strut in one go, instead of surfacing to refill halfway.
• Several zincs. On a boat with zincs on the shaft, the trim tabs and the hull, you can check and swap them in a single session.
• A mooring inspection. Following the chain from the ball down, checking each shackle and swivel, takes longer than people expect.
• A slower swim. With the OXAIR mask, you can stay down and watch instead of coming up every few minutes.

Those 15 minutes are a guide, not a promise. They are measured breathing calmly near the surface. Scraping, cutting and swimming against a current all make you breathe harder, and the air goes faster. Plan to head back up well before the maximum and watch the gauge.

How much air that is

One liter at 200 bar, about 2,900 psi, expands to roughly 200 liters of air, about 7 cubic feet. For scale, a standard aluminum 80 dive cylinder holds about 80 cubic feet. The OX1000 is still a small tank for short stays close to the surface, just a longer one.

Refilling it

The OX1000 refills with the 12 V / 220 V compressor in about 20 minutes. On a boat, that means the house battery, never the engine's starting battery. Ashore, a car battery or the mains.

The hand pump is not compatible with this volume. It is made for the 0.5 liter tanks only. That is why the OX1000 pack on oxsea.shop comes with the compressor.

The tank ships empty. Fill it before your first dive, then after each one.

OX1000 or another tank?

• If your jobs take five minutes, the OX500Plus is lighter, refills faster and can also run on the hand pump.
• If you work under a larger boat or want 20 minutes or more, the OX2000 carries 2.3 liters.
• The comparison page puts all four side by side.

Before you go under

More air is not a reason to go deeper. Stay shallow, breathe continuously, never hold your breath on the way up and ascend slowly. Engine off and keys out before anyone goes under the boat, and the dive flag up: our guide to dive flag rules in the US has the distances by state. The safety guide on oxsea.shop covers the rest.