Survey: What's your coolant, and how well is it working?

[Sproket]

I have used that Lysol to clean and it works very well by itself. let it run through tubing for 30 min to 1 hour and all will be clear. rinse good and your done.

[brucoman]

1. Distilled
2. Tygon R3603 1/2" ID, 3/4" OD
3. Dowfrost clear Propylene glycol, specific gravity 1.055
4. None
5. Direct sunlight on res. & UV light
6. When EvoS block went in, ~2 months, ~8 months w/ prior Swiftech (same batch of coolant)
7. No change, crystal clear
8. Copper, anodized alum, brass, stainless steel, titanium
9. Everything is as new, clean & clear.

[WaterPimp]

1-Did you use distilled or tap water (or other water)?
Distilled water (only way to go IMO)

2-What type of tubing do you use? (Tygon specify grade, Clearflex, vinyl, silicone,...)
Clearflex – ½” ID

3-What anti-corrosion additive do you use? (Water Wetter, Hyperlube, Purple Ice, Zerex, Silkolene ProCCA, ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, etc...)
Using Hydrx for this time around, was using Water Wetter but the smell was terrible!

4-What other additive, if any, did you use? (methyl alcohol, rubbing alcohol, Jet-Dry, soap, etc...)
5 – 6 drops of UV Reactive green dye

5-What amount of light reaches your coolant? (direct daily sunlight, UV from my X CCFL, none, etc...)
only light that my coolant gets is from the 2 ccl uv lights and 2 ccl green lights

6-How long have you been running with that solution? (First time, 6 months, 1 year, etc...
with this mixture – 2 months, but I change my coolant ever 3-4 months

7-Have you noticed any color changes in your coolant? (yes, turned green, grey, red, clear, etc...)
no color change noticable

8-What metals are exposed to the coolant? (Copper, raw aluminium, brass, stainless steel, Anodized Aluminium, all of the above, etc...)
copper, and brass is all

9-What are your results? (white deposit on tubes, some algae growth, everything OK, etc...)
after draining I do a tubing flush with distilled water, and the clearflex is still clear 

[Celestial_fury]

1. Deionised water
2. Tygon R-3603 1/2"
3. Bluecol (ethylene glycol based antifreeze)
4. No other additives
5. Ambient room lighting (no direct sunlight)
6. Up 1 month
7. Its blue and stays blue.
8. All Copper (Maze 3, DD GPU block and BIX), though gonna be some silver in there within the month from custom CPU W/B. Might put a zinc anode in then too.
9. No buildups at all (so far)


FuRy

[CheeseBall]

1- Distilled

2- Clearflex60

3- Zerex

4- None

5- Some sunlight through the blinds about 3 hours aday.

6- 5 months I think

7- Turned more foggy, tubing is stained haizy now.

8- Copper, Brass, JB Weld, some primer.

9- Tubing is abit stained, loosend up some w/ algecide. Block had a small amount of greenish stain and some places the the copper was darker.

Here's a pic of the tubing, you can't even see the alen wrench through it.

[Cova]

Just to add to my earlier post, for the first time in just over a year I really opened the system up. My system normally stays sealed to the point of holding a fair bit of pressure, and has only had the cap on the fill-tube (no res, just a T) opened about 6 times to add a small amount of coolant (you'll see how small soon). I have no idea where the coolant was going, I think there must have been tiny air-bubbles in the rad. Anyways, except for a tiny area for a few minutes only a few times a year, there is never fresh oxygen in contact with the coolant for anything to grow. To save you searching the previous page, this is all either Copper or Brass, Tygon tubing, and Distilled Water + WaterWetter.

Previous to this, I was never sure if my coolant was turning a kind of brownish pink, or if my tubing was getting stained. Draining the system into the sink revealed that it is the tubing, as my coolant that was originally pink has now gone clear. Attached is a picture I took right after draining the system into the sink (with the drain plugged). Yes, I shook/rotated/etc. the block, pump, and rad - that is ALL the coolant my system holds. My theory currently (until someone replies with a better one) is that with such a small volume of water-wetter in the system (about 3% of the volume you see in that sink) either it's coloring, or the active ingredients as well, were absorbed by the tubing and/or reacted to form the protective coating over the metals (the black layer that it was found to cause by previous coolant mixture tests - my block is soldered shut and I don't have the skill to reassemble it so I'm not going to look inside to find out).


Anyways - I'm currently rebuilding the system to put into my new computer system. Fresh coolant will be put in (I'm planning Aquafina + a bit of water-wetter again), I'm mostly done building an aluminum fan shroud (upgrade from my cerial-box-cardboard + electrical tape shroud-experiment-turned-permanent), and I just let the pump push a water + CLR mixture (very weak, I didn't measure) through for about an hour to try and clean it. The CLR mixture was light-yellow when I started, and light-green when I flushed it. There was also a fine black powder that had settled at the bottom of the sink. If anyone has ideas on how to easily remove a pink water-wetter stain I'd appreciate it, but since I plan on putting new water-wetter in in a few days and it'll probably just re-stain, it's not that important.

[Asmordean]

1-Did you use distilled or tap water (or other water)?

Tap water

2-What type of tubing do you use? (Tygon specify grade, Clearflex, vinyl, silicone,...)

Whatever the stuff that Home Depot sells (Clear)

3-What anti-corrosion additive do you use? (Water Wetter, Hyperlube, Purple Ice, Zerex, Silkolene ProCCA, ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, etc...)

None

4-What other additive, if any, did you use? (methyl alcohol, rubbing alcohol, Jet-Dry, soap, etc...)

I toss in 70% alcohol ever few weeks to kill the nasties.

5-What amount of light reaches your coolant? (direct daily sunlight, UV from my X CCFL, none, etc...)

Virtually none.

6-How long have you been running with that solution? (First time, 6 months, 1 year, etc...

8 months.

7-Have you noticed any color changes in your coolant? (yes, turned green, grey, red, clear, etc...)

Still crystal clear and odour free.

8-What metals are exposed to the coolant? (Copper, raw aluminium, brass, stainless steel, Anodized Aluminium, all of the above, etc...)

Brass & copper

9-What are your results? (white deposit on tubes, some algae growth, everything OK, etc...)

Calcium forms on the outside of the tubes where they are subjected to evaporation (open res cooling). Inside the tubes, there is a slight haze that is easy to remove. No alge, slime, or moulds are growing. The waterblocks remain very clean. My heatercore stays fairly clean but does get some calcium deposits on it that I remove with CLR about every six months.

With open res cooling, using anything but tap water is a bit costly/stinky.

[boomer235]

1. distilled
2. vinyl 3/8 id 9/16 od
3. none
4. 1 oz Humidifier bacteriostat
5. Incandescant light (75 watt) to 3 feet total exposed portion of tubing as it is an external system
6. 4 months
7. none
8. copper WB, Cu Rad, Brass fittings on Rad.
9. everything OK

*note I started WCing with Water Wetter and it left the deposit on my tubes, cleaned it with CLR solution and hot water. replaced with above solution.

[Sproket]

1-Did you use distilled or tap water (or other water)?
DISTILLED WATER BEING USED

2-What type of tubing do you use? (Tygon specify grade, Clearflex, vinyl, silicone,...)
CLEARFLEX 60

3-What anti-corrosion additive do you use? (Water Wetter, Hyperlube, Purple Ice, Zerex, Silkolene ProCCA, ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, etc...)

NONE

4-What other additive, if any, did you use? (methyl alcohol, rubbing alcohol, Jet-Dry, soap, etc...)

IM USING 2 DROPS OF IODINE AND ONE DROP ALGAE DESTROYER

HOMEMADE UV DYE STILL GLOWING STRONG FOR 1 MONTH NOW

5-What amount of light reaches your coolant? (direct daily sunlight, UV from my X CCFL, none, etc...)
i JUST HAVE 2 UV LIGHT INSIDE CASE FOR UV DYE

6-How long have you been running with that solution? (First time, 6 months, 1 year, etc...
LITTLE OVER ONE MONTH NOW, TUBING IS STILL CRYSTAL CLEAR
IM USING AQUACOIL II RAD.

7-Have you noticed any color changes in your coolant? (yes, turned green, grey, red, clear, etc...)
NO CHANGES IN COLOR, STILL VERY NICE UV GREEN AT NIGHT
DURING DAY ALMOST CLEAR, i CAN SEE MY VIDEO CARD THROUGH TUBING.


8-What metals are exposed to the coolant? (Copper, raw aluminium, brass, stainless steel, Anodized Aluminium, all of the above, etc...)
RAD IS ALL COPPER, BLOCK IS ALL COPPER
BARBS ARE BRASS.

and lastly:

9-What are your results? (white deposit on tubes, some algae growth, everything OK, etc...)
EVERYTHING IS GREAT, NO GROWTH, NO ALGAE, NOTHING

WILL REPORT BACK IN A MONTH OR TWO.

[bigben2k]

Can you tell us more about the "homemade UV Dye"?

[Turbokeu]

1) Did you use distilled or tap water?
Distilled

2) What type of tubing do you use?
Tygon R-3603 1/2" - 1/8" wall

3) What anti-corrosion additive do you use?
Purple Ice, doesn't color, doesn't smell (at all!)

4) What other additive, if any, did you use?
Visible blue dye lite

5) What amount of light reaches your coolant?
direct daily light, UV & blue CCFL's

6) How long have you been running with that solution?
couple of months, WC setup was stopped for 7 months with coolant in it (& green dye lite)

7) Have you noticed any color changes in your coolant?
No

8) What metals are exposed to the coolant?
Copper, brass

9) What are your results?
Everything OK, water is still crystalclear