I am a god, i am the bringer of life....
... at least if you look at the beginning life soup in my waterloop...
i know why, btw. Last time i took the thing apart, i had some trouble getting the pump primed... so.. i blew into the tubes to get enough water between res and pump... big mistake!
Anyways, since i've been tinkering around the last weeks , in preparation of hooking the whole thing up to the G-loop , it was time to flush/clean it.
And reading this thread brought me to Dettol.... and my experience with it
First flushed the gunk into a container (pickled onions jar
), with some clean water behind it. Split that into two jars to do some experiments on it while the loop ran clean water.
One jar got a household (thick) bleach treatment - a scientific measured gulp. Whilst the other jar got its share of dettol (one cap per half pint according to the instructions on the bottle)
Shake well... let rest for two days
Results: both kill lifeforms... big time
However, it seems that bleach would be better suited for algae then for the kind life if blew into ..euuh life. The dettol mix seems to be more efficient in killing of the life i created. While in both case the dying stuff sinks to the bottom in strings and flocks of amoebic matter, the Dettol mix ended more transparant with more deadwood on the bottom.
I know subjectic observations, but nonetheless.. some result.
So , next steps taken:
Ran the look for several hours with a water/bleach mixture (5-10%), then several hours with a water/dettol mix (1 cap per half pint).
My main problem is that i cant build up enough pressure to *really* flush out the dead stuff that sticks to the rib and cones obstructions in the block unless i hook it up to a high pressure washer.. which i do not feel like doing right now.. besides it will most likely blow a few things apart
So, after the flushing/cleaning/desinfecting runs, back to a 'normal' mix:
92 % tetrosyl de-ionised water, the remaining 8% being mainly Dettol, a good few drops of household bleach, a bit of automotive windscreenwasher liquid (a surfractant, making water 'glide' better), and a couple of drops of uv-reactive stuff.
An observation: When you mix the dettol with the water it becomes white/opaque. Over time the water becomes transparant again. I would like to contribute this to the dettol 'eating away' at whatever beginning lifeforms that might be present, but i suspect it is down to evaporation
Esspecially since i ran the loop for several hours with an open reservoir to get rid of air/bubbles.
But, in a self-delusional way, one could say that by the time the water becomes clear again, the dettol has done its job.
Anyways, it seems to work.
Note: yes, i know, i know.. the horror... of using this kind of mixture...: my tubes will melt, big holes will burn in my rads, the pump will become evil incarnate, and GWB will come and liberate my PC from its evil oppressor...
However... my block is gold plated (in and outside) not plain copper and thus can sustain a serious amount of abuse. The tubes will be replaced with larger ones soon. What it does to the Alu rads, i wouldn't know, i'll find out if they ever come apart. And the pump, yeah well, it wouldn't be the first one to die on me. Thats why for the future i'll be looking to somthing more substancial then those 'hobby-pumps'.
Now, i do not really even want to consider what kind of end result this mixture of chemicals gives... but i know for sure that it can not be healthy to the god that created life. Initially i sat here -in a well ventilated room- with a running nose and watering eyes and a bit of a strange slimy feeling in my throath while the loop ran through its hours of cleaning and the new mix.
Maybe i am oversensitive to dettol, that is possible of course , but i feel like it has been doing more then killing a few germs in my airways :S But of course the nicotine/tar combi that i subject my airways to is probably worse.
If anyone feels like looking up if the mixture of dettol and bleach and windscreen washer and uv-reactive stuff is the new recepy for sarin or mustard-gas, please feel free to do so.
Conclusion: while this mix seems to work, i feel that it might be a bit too agressive (to humans) for practical daily use.
(anyone feel like doing the chemical maths and come up with a 'safe' mix?)