Quote:
Originally posted by Meridan
This is my first post on this forum... wohoo 
The water does not rust the radiator, the radiator is made of either aluminum or copper and neither of those two materials rust. They do corrode, but the water has no effect on that (right?).
The hoses will not dry and crack, cause there really isn't that much heat inside the hoses. Maybe 20-25 degrees C (70-80 degrees F).
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Welcome to ProCooling!
Most metals rust, when exposed to oxygen (water), but many behave differently. Aluminium will actually protect itself (to a certain extent) with the oxidized coating, while Iron will continually rust.
Having different metals exposed to the same liquid actually accelerates the rusting process.
Hoses do dry up, but we're far from seeing one dry up to the point where it will crack, for the reason you mentionned.
Otherwise, anti-freeze makes a lot of sense, if you're trying to prevent your coolant from freezing (i.e. chiller)
. #Rotor uses it, and has been able to keep his loop clean for up to 3 1/2 years.
Without a chiller, all one really needs is an anti corrosion agent. The anti-freeze solutions do contain some of those agents, but it's quite overkill to use one in a normally cooled PC, IMO.
Using an anti-corrosion agent is optional, unless you have highly opposed metals in the loop, i.e. Aluminium and copper. Reference: galvanic chart. Brass and copper are very close to each other.
Then there's algae...