the R-3603 tubing bends about as tight as similar sized silicone tubing...so if youre having trouble with silicone tubing, youll most likely have trouble with the tygon as well.

by the way, i dont buy that whole 'evaporation thru silicone' stuff...i think some-1 needs to do a formal test to prove or disprove that.

I was able to get the silicon to bend enough for me, but I wanted to make sure the tygon would also make the same bends so I don't have to get some copper elbows.

Well, I'm not sure about the evaporation either, but if im going to redo all my connections I might as well replace the tubing as well.

That would really be cool if someone could test that evaporation theory.

Garetjax

you might want different clamps as wel lol.
or, you can use two if those worm-drive (gear) clamps, so they tighten evenly. ive seen some-1 do this befor (orient the clams so the 'boxes' are on opposite sides).l

Cyco-dude: ask an aquarium pro who knows his stuff. Or a chemical engineer. They'll both tell you that this silicon is *porous*.
i.e. just any liquid with low tensile strength (water, ww, alcohol and so on) will slowly sip through and eventually evaporate on the surface.

You are 100% true! Ever wonder why silicon tubing turns red with some sort of dye, like food coloring? Or Watter Wetter???

Vinyl tubing you can simply clean it off, with silicon you dye your water red, expect your tubing to be red too. Actually more of a pink, since silicon tubing is kind of an off white.

garetjax,

I had the same problem as you. Over the past 6 months I've been losing water in my system. There was no indication of any leaks but there was a heavy small of watter wetter. I even went as far as to replace my radiator from a super cube to a black ice extreme while replacing all the silicone hoses. Again no indication of leak and a heavy smell of water wetter.

I replaced the tubes with Tygon a week ago and the smell is gone. Haven't lost any water since then either. I normally lose about an inch a week from the top fill tube.

This is only a guess which may apply to my system (or not). The silicone hose was "sweating" the water out. My case temp is pretty high (40C) due to bad ventilation. I have only the fans pulling air thru the radiator into the case. The only exhaust is the single 80mm fan.

I still have high case temps because I'd rather not add an additional fan. The case is so quiet that the tiny hum of the video card fan bothers me. Maybe going to add a GPU block someday.

Hope this helps.

Mayhem

Mayhem,

Thanks for replying. My case temps are usually around 23-25C. I have 2 120mm panaflows pulling air thru my rad and two blowing it out the back of the case, however I have a voltage regulator so they are turned down real low so they are silent.

I'm going to order some tygon and try it out.

Garetjax

Get Tygon R-3603 ;)

I'd get the Tygon, but only if you can't put up with constant refilling. Remember: your rig works fine right now...