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Using a Silver Coil

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MrLarkins

Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2005
Hey, this post has nothing to do with water cooling a computer. However, I believe someone here has the expert opinion I'm looking for.

In my loop, I use a silver coil in my res and distilled water. Works perfectly. No growth.

At my church, our baptistry grows and is a problem overall. Some of the guys suggested having a filtration system installed. I suggested we look into a silver coil. Not sure if it would work, that is why I'm asking here.

The tub is about 1000gallons. There is a pump (http://www.horizonparts.net/store/Main.aspx?p=itemdetail&item=34-430-2200) already installed to heat and circulate the water. Do you think a silver coil inserted into the loop would be an effective treatment/deterant of growth in the water? If so, how much of a silver coil would be needed?

Thanks for letting me pick your brains!
 
It might be...1000gal is pretty far out of scope for anyone here, I imagine to have the silver diffuse through the loop in any reasonable amount of time you'd need a lot of it, it'd also need to be in there somewhere where it couldn't mess up the pump and people couldn't get at it (since silver's pretty expensive, and people are still people, even if they're church people). It's not implausible, but I doubt anyone can give you a solid answer from PC WC experience.
 
I actually dont think it would work. Though you MAY be bale to get the silver running through, the problem is that the water is open to air and the outside correct? it will certainly be continually bombarded with particles. I dont think silver would be able to handle that. It's kinda why pools and such need chlorine and whatnot, you really need something strong to kill everything.
 
I actually dont think it would work. Though you MAY be bale to get the silver running through, the problem is that the water is open to air and the outside correct? it will certainly be continually bombarded with particles. I dont think silver would be able to handle that. It's kinda why pools and such need chlorine and whatnot, you really need something strong to kill everything.

Except that this is holy water or something of the sort, I believe, and as such needs to be kept relatively free of any detectable contaminants (someone correct me if I'm wrong, I don't really do the whole church thing)
 
Silver has been done with large bodies of water before via government study and in swimming pools. But like m0r7if3r said, you will need more silver than just one coil for that much water. The study used impregnated silver in filter of swimming pool. Basically you need to achieve 20 ppb of silver. Below is study and conclusions:

governmental research project.

Pool water circulated through a filter of activated carbon impregnated with metallic silver....

The County Health Department took up to 50 daily samples and found that silver ions remained in the pool at the low, steady rate of 20 parts per billion, with water free of coliform, pseudomonas and staphylococcus bacteria throughout the two seasons. In contrast, 65 water samples from 30 other pools having a mean concentration of 700 parts per billion of available chlorine for disinfection, showed a mean of 1.3 pseudomonas and 7.3 staph cells per millilitre of water.

"This data," the Health Department reported, "indicates that silver is equal to chlorine in maintaining essentially coliform-free pool water, and is somewhat better than chlorine in destroying pseudomonas and staph aureus organisms. The latter two organisms are important from the stand-point of bather health. "During the two seasons with the silver treated pool there have been no eye, ear, nose or throat irritations or infections reported," the Department declared. "It should also be noted that there were no visible growths of algae during the testing period."

The Health Department reported its conclusions thus:

"Silver is an effective bactericide for swimming pool water treatment.
"Silver disinfection is easier and safer than other purifying agents.
"Silver does not produce changes in pH thus eliminating the need to add pH adjustment chemicals.
"Silver at prescribed dosages is non toxic to humans."
 
The thing is, the process that the government thing went through was via silver anode/cathodes going through oxidation/reduction reactions. I dont exactly know how cost effective it would be for the OP to do this, or how he would accomplish this. Pretty sure going out and buying 50 silver coils and hope that's enough to get the right concentration isnt going to cut it.

Overall, yes. this WOULD work in terms of a safe biocide IF a strong enough concentration of silver can be achieved. The problem is, how this would be done as one silver coil definitely won't do the trick. Keep in mind the comparison, a closed water loop has maybe a liter of water running through it, and there are about 3.78 liters in 1 gallon, so you're thinking about 3780 times the amount of water you need to get silver through compared to a regular loop.
 
Perhaps using a few dozen silver 1oz crosses submerged would suit you? It would have a 'holy effect' and lots of surface area. Churches have budgets.
 
We had a Jacuzzi that used silver ion catridges to keep the water clean. No Clorine!. The were replaced every 3 months, about $30 each. I think When I bought the jacuzzi, they mentioned pools use them too. Like the above artical. Call your pool company............
 
hehe, lets think extravagently...I could propose to get a silver lined tub! or a tub made of .999 silver in the first place. that would work...but I don't think they'll go for it. money could be better used elsewhere.
 
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