Hi, hope this helps. I mixed brands of tubing in the summer 2010 to experiment. Tygon 3603 was in the fill-line to the reservoir and also the drain line. The rest of the single loop was Masterkleer because of the influence on me by Spawn-Inc who had used MK successfully for years with distilled & PT Nuke. My coolant was distilled with a silver coil as biocide. I never used PT Nuke or any biocide but silver. Tygon 3603 clouded around 6 months. Instead of changing coolant, I observed. Around 10 to 11 months when gray-blue chunks were floating from the Tygon 3603 around my silver coil, my curiosity was sated about Tygon 3603. But under the same conditions, the MK was clear. I drained the loop, did not think to test pH, but started a
thread with photos here.
My curiosity about durability of MK grew so I left the old Masterkleer on and put in a new MK drain tube to act as a control. I again used a Tygon 3603 fill-tube to see if the fill-site won't migrate after clouding because it doesn't stay wet long (seems true). I use no coil now but instead two .999 silver barbs plus two .999 compressions as my only biocide. After 17 months of use the MK had gotten cloudy but the interesting thing was the color. Not sure why the MK turned tan while Tygon was gray-blue. Around 19 months (end of January 2012), there started a brown staining of my reservoir. That was as long as I was going to leave the MK in but wanted to watch the res longer (it was ruined anyway). So I only drained coolant and swapped tubing to fresh MK again not thinking to test pH. The coolant was clear without chunks. I ordered a new reservoir and tubing and did some shopping for a filtration cleaning system.
In spite of the new MK tubing remaining clear between the last weekend of January 2012 and early April, my reservoir continued to smear. In early April I had had enough and did a tear-down to flush the system and open the CPU block. That thread with pictures is
here. I finally got two Aquarium pH testing kits but the new coolant was only a little over 2 months old when tested. The coolant pH was 7, my tap water was 7, and two different batches of distilled that were fresh were 6.
At the full tear-down, I flushed all components (rads & pumps too) with the Pond Pump/Water-filter method (5 micron) described by Lazy Man of West Coast Mods on Martin210's website but could never trap any chunks of plasticizer like with the Tygon. The new Primochill tubing and reservoir placed last month have been in place less than 2 months but there is no brown staining in the new reservoir and all tubing is clear.
This is my first time trying Primochill Primoflex LRT so I hope it is the magic brand. I will put in the poll that I thought it was bad batches because I see no pattern yet. I would have checked a "I don't know" box had it been there.
What I think I learned is if someone complains of cloudy tubing, they should probably drain the coolant and consider replacing tubing...or not complain if there is permanent staining of clear acrylic. My res was only $25 so it's easy to "sacrifice" one now and then in the name of science (or curiosity).
Otherwise, my machine is on 24/7 and overclocked. Temps have always been fine and it is always stable. Can't think of anything else to add. Happy to answer any questions. Thanks for doing this. Good luck.
