Why I Moving to Clear

scotsdragon · 7 Sep 2013 at 09:15

As the title states this is why I am moving to clear liquid in my water cooling

When I moved to custom loop (OC V8 Kit) like lots I thought Yeah coloured fluid and bought UV blue

Then one day after a month or so I thought id clean the inside of my comp and was greeted with

I thought bugger lol a few suggested could be the tubing (fast forward abit in time) and I bought a lot of goodies including new tubing and clear pre mix fluid
Drained my loop and found this awaiting me

It looks like someone had been using my tubing to smoke the WHACKY BACCY lol yet the fluid although darker seemed fine

Lets hope the Clear stuff and clear primo flex tubing stay clear! lol its the joys of water cooling lol

Doomedspeed · 7 Sep 2013 at 09:43

I quite like that mouldy green colour.

What about coloured tubing and clear fluid?

scotsdragon · 7 Sep 2013 at 09:54

Coloured tubing would be an easier solution I could have just got a bad batch of tubing, Ive went clear cause I want it to look simple and clean and still be able to flush it easily

Mayhems · 7 Sep 2013 at 14:39

some thing has coloured it yellow hence why you have gone green now either some one pranking you or you have never flushed out you equipment or you have some serious issues.. its one of the 3 and not the dyes fault. Blue dye just doesn't turn green unless some thing has made it change that colour.

scotsdragon · 7 Sep 2013 at 16:09

I know something coloured it and i did flush with distelled water from Halfords but i will be cleaning everything a lot before putting it back into my loop, i know colour just doesn't change it needed a catalyst wether it be XSPC tubing our your die reacting with something maybe not wholey flushed out of the rad or block. by issues do you mean me personally or the above mentioned something in the loop?

Meoricin · 7 Sep 2013 at 22:25

Coloured tubing and distilled water with a killcoil is still best. No clogging, no staining, better cooling.

It's not like we watercoolers leave our PC untouched for longer than a few months at a time anyway, so changing the water out isn't a significant inconvenience anyway.

Zeed · 8 Sep 2013 at 10:02

Meoricin in my case with kill coil **** GREW inside of pipes !!!!

Meoricin · 8 Sep 2013 at 12:02

Lord_ZED said:
Meoricin in my case with kill coil **** GREW inside of pipes !!!!

No offense intended here, but it's really hard to come back to that without coming off as insulting - there are a number of reasons that could happen, but they all come down to common sense:

Contaminants in loop - either from improper cleaning or water that isn't really distilled;
Left in direct sunlight;
Not changed regularly enough (6 months would be reasonable);
Mixing metals in loop for galvanic corrosion;
Left standing rather than flowing for extended periods (a week or more, particularly in direct sunlight, could be bad);
Not enough silver for the volume of water.

I'm sure there are a few others, but they'll still be failures of the process rather than the components.

Personally I've run distilled water with a killcoil and UV light for a couple years now (not a single loop - changes within those years), and have never had any issues.

Kei · 9 Sep 2013 at 11:17

Meoricin said:
Mixing metals in loop for galvanic corrosion

Not enough silver for the volume of water.

These two points contradict each other. Silver is dissimilar to copper, nickel, brass & solder. (Which are all dissimilar) Using it as your biocide means releasing silver ions into the deionised water, which will result in slow galvanic corrosion as the electronegativities are different. (Unless your blocks are made of silver too)

Blame · 9 Sep 2013 at 12:18

Ive been using primochill advanced tubing for almost 2 months and i run x1 with a red/dark red/blue mix dye.

recently added a 670 waterblock and the tubing was still crystal clear.

Mayhems · 9 Sep 2013 at 15:17

Nope didnt mean personal issues just issue as in problem with the whole set up. I dount it was the tubing how ever if it was id be totally gob smacked.

MikeTimbers · 9 Sep 2013 at 19:45

Meoricin said:
Coloured tubing and distilled water with a killcoil is still best. No clogging, no staining, better cooling.

It's not like we watercoolers leave our PC untouched for longer than a few months at a time anyway, so changing the water out isn't a significant inconvenience anyway.

This. Kill coil with battery top up water will stay clean for many months.

MikeTimbers · 9 Sep 2013 at 19:48

Kei said:
These two points contradict each other. Silver is dissimilar to copper, nickel, brass & solder. (Which are all dissimilar) Using it as your biocide means releasing silver ions into the deionised water, which will result in slow galvanic corrosion as the electronegativities are different. (Unless your blocks are made of silver too)

Technically possibly true but kill coils do not do this as far as I have ever heard

Meoricin · 10 Sep 2013 at 07:48

Kei said:
These two points contradict each other. Silver is dissimilar to copper, nickel, brass & solder. (Which are all dissimilar) Using it as your biocide means releasing silver ions into the deionised water, which will result in slow galvanic corrosion as the electronegativities are different. (Unless your blocks are made of silver too)

As I understand it, the silver would corrode first, giving plenty of warning to switch things out as it starts.

Emjay86 · 10 Sep 2013 at 17:26

The green is actually really nice lol.

I will say however that I recently went to mayhems pure h20 (DI water basically) and its great, im using XSPC clear/blue uv tubing and the lighter the room the clearer the tubing, its nice to watch the tubes get bluer and bluer as the night goes on.

I tried getting the UV look with UV fluid before and all I achieved was a night of awesome colour and anything after that was just a murky mess. Im sticking with H20 from now on.

Plus it doesn't gunk up your components which im aware the good brands out there dont usually do that but theres always a chance when you add crap to your fluid that it will at some point gunk up.

H20 and coloured tubing all the way!

Kei · 11 Sep 2013 at 20:27

Meoricin said:
As I understand it, the silver would corrode first, giving plenty of warning to switch things out as it starts.

Copper is more anodic than silver and would therefore corrode first. (silver is very cathodic) Copper is also more anodic than nickel. Tin/lead solder, brass and steel (in it's various forms) are more anodic than copper. The most anodic metal in the loop is the one that will corrode first hence why using aluminium is avoided as there are only a few metals higher in the galvanic series. Hence why zinc is commonly used as the sacrificial anode on ships. (it corrodes instead of the steel)

This is why corrosion inhibitors are so important, no loop is truly free of mixed metals. For example, my aqua computer gpu block is a mix of copper and stainless steel. Radiators are a mix of copper, tin solder and brass. Based on the data from the galvanic series, the stainless steel on my gpu block should corrode first and in a radiator it would be the tin/lead solder. I have read a few things about people actually using sacrificial anodes in pc watercooling back in its infancy.

Personally, I mixed my own coolant up using 20% dexcool and 80% distilled water. 6 months on and there has been no change to the colour or viscosity of the coolant and the tubing is still clear. I should be able to run the same coolant for 2 years without an issue.

OptimaLnrg · 11 Sep 2013 at 22:19

Check all of your blocks when you clean it all out mate.

For replacement tubing I suggest primochill advanced lrt.