Man, Did I ever screw up

I've been running this batch of water for a while now and I started to notice my video loop tubing was starting to turn just a little white. Didn't have any extra to replace it with and was not up to tearing it all apart, cleaning, flushing, yadda yadda yadda. So I went to the fish store and bought some No More Algea liquid for fresh water. Put about a 1/4 teaspoon in each loop for good measure since each loop holds between 1/2-3/4 gallon. WELL.....BIG MISTAKE!!

In a matter of hours all of my tubing was dark brown, the water was brownish cloudy real bad and my res's were all filmed up. SIGH!!! Took me 2 days to tear everything apart and scrub and flush and Yadda yadda yadda, which I should have done in the first place, not to mention having to replace all of my tubing.

Let this be a lesson to those who want to shortcut maintenance and cleaning of your setup....DON'T!!!!! You will most likely regret it.

Ouch, maybe its time I cleaned mine out too. been running dual loops for about 5 months now nonstop.

Wait... what happened? The stuff to kill algae turned your water brown and stained the tubing?

Biocide is the way to go

Yeah I'm a little confused. I put about a teaspoon of iodine (on accident) into my loop, i thought I was going to get caca water for my loop, but it quikly dissolved...? *shrug*

Please explain and thanks for sharing your experience to help others =)

using tygon silver here, no worries. EVER

using some black tubing from the DIY shop, anti-kink, anti-uv, cheap($1.34 per meter) and no worries, EVER

hehehe

I've been running my same tubing and equipment for like 9 months now (except the radiator, which is new) and I haven't had ANY growth. Maybe I'm just lucky?

unlucky m8
when i first got into WC i bought some of that non conductive stuff. cant remember the name. it said you could add colour to it. so i got some colour from a dif site that was well talked about. i added the colour and withing 2 days the loop turned to jelly.luckely i had asus moniter running and i noticed near melt down about to happen,and pulled the plug

recent news
ive just cleaned mine and replaced the tubing(water and anti freeze).there was no real need to realy replace the tube as all the water was still clear. just a little dirty in places
i built this loop just over 18 months ago

MrLarkins said:

using tygon silver here, no worries. EVER

Click to expand...

Hi there,where can I get tygon silver ?.

Clockwork_Apple said:

Wait... what happened? The stuff to kill algae turned your water brown and stained the tubing?

Click to expand...

That kinda sounds like the "no more algae stuff" caused a massive eutrophication??? WTF HAPPENED?!?!?!?

When I read these types of threads, I think of poor johnny who rather than wafting in the white fuming nitric acid fumes, fatefully stuck his nose in there and took a bif sniff...

Doesn't anyone test the stuff they buy first? I'm sure you won't go to some asian country and shove a turd-smelling food item into your mouth willingly w/o question if a guy on the internet said it was good.

BTW there are aligicides that are comprised of odd chemicals, usually for outdoor 'non aquatic life' ponds. Most likely it was something that didn't like the polyvinylchlorate or the copper.

My guess is whatever was in there died off fast and turned into bio-goo ...

QuietIce, that is exactly what I was thinking happened. After flushing it all out and cleaning everything except the rad's, since I dont know how to clean them other than flushing them out as best I can, I refilled it with just straight Dis water and a tablespoon of iodine. It has been running for a week now and my water is still clear but there is a little build up of brown in the bottom of my res's. It looks like if you sprinkled a little brown powder and it all settled to the bottom. My guess is residual left in the rads from the flush, and there is probably more in them. Don't know how I will ever get the rads back to squeeky clean, don't think I can really.

I am confused about this white growth in my system. My computer room is windowless, very dark and never sees any sunlight. I did this on purpose to get rid of any chance of glare on the screen. Yes, some ambient light can get in there from the hallway. I dont understand why I get the growth unless the water from the store is infected to begin with. I know the iodine helps and I have read in here that it doesn't last forever, that you need to refresh it on occassion. I have tried many different things before I finally said screw it and returned to straight water.

1. straight Fluid XP: That was a disaster. It sheared and it ended up looking like a lame thin lava lamp fluid.

2. Water and water wetter: tubes turned white.

3. water and hydrx: tubes turned white.

4. And this lasest disaster: shrug

So, I am thinking abot going with silver tubing, I dont know. I have a new custom UFO case comming and all brand new parts for it so I dont introduce old infected parts. We shall see.

I would think soaking a rad in white vinegar for an hour or so would clean out almost anything (I've even left it in over-night). If you follow that up with running tap water for a few minutes and a distilled rinse after that I'd think that would do it.


As for the infestation, who knows? Bacteria can live almost anywhere and it's next to impossible to keep the loop free of germs during assembly, that's why we all use iodine. But even then I always put a little aquarium algaecide in my mix since alga can live off almost anything, too. And it doesn't take a lot of light to grow - it can probably live off LEDs, especially the blue and red ones (most "grow lights" are purple)

Eh, I wouldn't worry about it much, just add a little algaecide and iodine to your next mix and you should be fine. Keeping it under control in the first place is 90% of the battle ...

I have been a proponent of and have been using now for a couple of years distilled water, a few drops of povidone-iodine, and a couple of drops of nothing special walmart fish aquarium algaecide. I also add about 10% antifreeze for good measure.

Although the antifreeze can be done without, it provides some PH buffers and may be beneficial to the pump. Anyway, this simple combination works with no growth and nothing to fuss with. It is cheap, effective, and lasts.

Some white film buildup is inevitable on the insides of the tubing. This is normal and seems to be a plasticizer issue with the tubing itself since some tubing is worse at this than others. I have some to prefer Masterkleer myself, although I have been tempted to switch to all copper tubing at some point for the fun of it.

If you really have gunk in your rad, you can squirt some DOW Scrubbing Bubbles into it, shake it around, let it sit for a few minutes, wash it out good with hot water and some dishsoap, and then soak in a vinegar/water mix and then hot water with dishsoap again. This should eliminate anything inside.

Hmmmm...I do have my res's lighted with UV LED's. They are Tanky UV Blue dual bay res's and each one has 2 LED's. I also have the Nexus 4 channel fan controllers under each res which have 5 blue LED's shining into the res's. Could be whats giving it all light enough for growth.

I guess I should go with the silver tube but I hate the idea of not being able to see the water in the tubing. It gives me a sense of comfort to see full tubing and know where air is if there is any and such. I wouldnt have that with silver. I have enough clear tygon to tube the new setup. Prolly give that a go first and see. If I get white again then I will switch to silver I guess, who knows.

The only thing I havent tried yet is bleach, tablespoon or 2 in the water. I feel it would keep things clean but am afraid it would hurt the D5 pumps over time. Would do a good job for soaking the rads as long as they were flushed good I think. Damn sure kill anything in them. Just dont know what it would do to a running system.

IIRC chlorine isn't good for copper or rubber so I'd be really careful if you decide to go that route.


I, too, prefer clear tubing for the same reasons and have a few blue LEDs around for task lighting. That doesn't really bother me if the right chemicals are in the water. The iodine and algaecide (both very cheap) should work fine to control any growth - even with your grow lights shining on it ...