Clear Tubing going Cloudy.

[bluezero5]

Nice seeing u post here Musicfan. In fact many of those threads you posted in from years ago were data where I collected data. I recognized your unique postings as they are rarely less than 200 words per reply.

I do think pH is a strong contributor to the tubes clouding, and CuSO4.. from

Cu0H (a weak alkaine)
H2SO4 (a strong acid)

makes CuSO4 inheritly acidic when in aquaeous form. I think a lot of people ended up using more than 'recommended', when 1 drop, did 3. (read it from many many posts), and as a result, they run a tube of acidic water.. (which is a TERRIBLE thing .. as given time = corrision of your CPU block.)

however, it is also true that tubings from years ago, seems to be of much better quality. I am not sure if the source of tubing of Primochill and some brand are the same, (wont be surprised if so), but if they are, then I think the recent brands became much more vulnerable to Acidic solutions, and clouds up MUCH faster...

hence, I believe the result will be...
Poor brand + too much CuS04

regardless.. on my next loop. I am silver only.

 

[trueblack]

good to find this thread.

same story for me. Primoflex victim.
I have contacted primoflex and got ignored pretty badly, basically they say if it is out of the box it is not their problem anymore.

Any good brands of tubing out there that can stay clear forever?

and bz5 is right about pH, I have once thought it is ok to put 4 drops of deadwater into a loop. result is near 'instant' clouding. yes. so I believe it.

Question:

Is JUST silver enough? really?

 

[musicfan]

Question:

Is JUST silver enough? really?

Yes, I used a silver coil for almost a year without infection. Then as a trial, I removed it. Now, for over a year, I have only used four .999 silver Bitspower "True Silver", fittings which are silver-plated to get a surface area greater than the coil and have never had any infection. Either silver or copper can damage microbes.

Here is one link. Please let me know if you wish more.

 

[dtrunk]

@musicfan; nice to have you here and the info you posted. though now you have me worried about leaving the primo in, i can retube, but it's only been a month. I was going to wait for z77/IB cpu upgrade, but now I guess not. what a fricken joke Primo is. Here, let us sell you this tubing, it might completely ruin your custom loop you spent $400+ on, but hey it's clear and can make low radius turns... wooooooh.

so then @all u peeps about the deadwater n cuso4; i only used a silver coil, IanH.

i have still yet to see any comments on ozonated water.

 

[m0r7if3r]

Placticizer, as far as I'm aware, is generally a purely visual phenomenon, it won't do any damage to your loop, and if it does, it won't be anything that a cleaning won't fix.

 

[gregmacknass]

I have to say that biocides of any kind aren't the problem. I run straight distilled in my loop, and the tubing is clouded. I think that small plastic particles are picked up off of the tubing. Those few particles soon become many particles. With the high flow rates of modern pumps, those few particles become an abrasive to the tubing. The more of the plastic, the cloudier the tubing becomes. I think that temperature of the water might play some role as well as possibly the PH, but to a lesser degree.

 

[musicfan]

Placticizer, as far as I'm aware, is generally a purely visual phenomenon, it won't do any damage to your loop, and if it does, it won't be anything that a cleaning won't fix.

I agree with m0r7if3r. In spite of frequent load testing I never did document performance changes. Moreover, my "permanent staining" of my res may be only because it's not a model that can be opened up to clean with a cloth.

I also purposefully pushed the tubing beyond "clouding" as part of some observations to help me learn to troubleshoot infection versus plasticizer. Opening up the PC every 3 to 6 months to blow out dust and look in the res should be routine. If I had drained coolant after cloudy tubing or 6 months and changed tubing at 12 months, I likely would have prevented the smeared res.

But I chose to pursue my goals: 1) the photo with the plasticizer around the silver coil, 2) the photo with the plasticizer flakes in the shot-glass, and 3) dissect the tubing and feel it to know it was not infection. It was powdery - not slimy. That ended that Tygon test.

The Masterkleer test was a longevity test. It was clear for over a year. But when it went bad, it was dramatic. I ended that when the reservoir smeared. I am happy no plasticizer showed up in the pond-pump drinking-water 5 micron filter flush or inside the new res I placed about 6 weeks ago.

The Primochill been on since 4 months and looks new but the jury is still out. It's fun for me to use my loop to learn abut water-cooling parts as part of the hobby. It would have been important to learn if my load temps had shot up or if I was still getting plasticizer out of the radiators onto my res after tubing/coolant change but neither happened. The ongoing testing is educational rather than alarming.

gregmacknass, please keep the pump hypothesis in mind. I wonder about turbulence with high flow with my dual D5 varios at setting 5 that run 24/7. Or maybe we vibrate the tubing too much? The estimated gpm for my system on Martin210's spreadsheet is 1.5. I will keep the pumps the same at least until I see what happens with this batch of Primochill. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

[xander89]

although a lot of people are claiming that biocide/nuke isnt the issue ( because they have used it with success) i think what has been said a few times now is the truth. Although these hoses are prone to leeching Placticizer biocides tend to accelerate the process opposed to silver kill coil. Thats seems to be a general consensus.

People who have used KC only seem to see clouding after a few months, not like the 1 week seen with biocides. I think going on what everyone has said here biocide can change the PH of the coolant quite dramatically+combined with CuSO4= a somewhat compelling case.

Again i think the best way is to simply do what blue is going to do. Test the exact same tubing with KC, if after a few weeks/ a month we dont see clouding we will know that Biocide is a contributing factor. Considering both me and blue are seeing clouding after just 1 week it should be relatively easy to establish what is causing it, given the short time frame it is happening in.

Is there any tubing which people have used that isnt clouding at all, thats the main question. I'm taking about NOONE complaining of clouding. Not just one lucky *******! lol.

If possible it would be good to get a separate poll with my suggested questions. It will allow us to clearly say ( for example) we have 100 people who have voted, 50 who use primochill 30 who masterkleer, etc. Out of those who used primochill 45 used biocide and distilled the rest used KC. Out of those who used masterkleer 29 used biocide and distilled saw clouding and only one with KC. Out of that total, there were a lot of people who had a high PH coolant etc etc. if we have that kind of data we can conclusively say that biocide/ tubing/ Ph is the likely culprit.

The problem is the majority of people do not know the cause of clouding, its all guess work, hence why we have this thread open. We dont know what is causing it, and basing a conclusion on data/a poll that is opinion/guesswork wont be useful. So asking people what they "think" is too subjective and you cant quantify the data. This wont give us any real evidence. We need a scale/ set of questions. If we actually got enough data, combined with the tests that some people are going to do on the actual water and tubing, we might actually have something we could take to these companies. If anyone was handy with PSAW ( i think that is the program used nowadays for statistics) they might be able to do some proper tests on the data we get. Thats if we can come up with a hypothesis. ( I'm chatting with my gf atm and shes poking holes in the kind of data we would get from this poll, she did psychology and hence a lot of statistics and is saying we wont be able to get any useful data from this poll/a definitive conclusion.)

 

[RGE]

8-9 years ago, everyone got plasticizer in tubing in matter of weeks/months, because everyone was using tygon 3603. I would run mine for several months, then take loop down and use a rifle/shotgun bore cleaner with rags, and cleane the white powdery plasticizer off, then it usually didnt reform, or if did only trace amounts.

The biggest factor that we have no control over is the production run of the particular tubing. Plasticizer can be added at varying concentrations/methods, that is data that would be most interesting to me. It will still be interesting to see, if you use the exact same tubing, ie buy 20 ft or so, then use 1/2 with silver coil for few months, then other 1/2 with copper sulphate for few months and see if any difference in time to leach.

But, If I didnt have enough old primochill (no plasticizer problems) and had to buy new tubing, I wouldnt be trying to figure out how to slow it from leaching ie weeks vs months, either sucks... I would be trying different things like boiling tubing or hot water etc, trying to get it to leach out prior to build, then clean it with rifle bore/rag after cutting into approximate size runs I need. But if you find something that accelerates it, ie hot water + acidic ph, in the future I will soak my tubing that way then clean prior to use.

You can always use tygon beverage tubing, althought it slightly discolors, ie yellows over a years use like all other clear tubing....it does not have any plasticizer to leach, and still bends well in my use, ie 3/8 5/8 works well, though it only comes in clear.

 

[bluezero5]

But, If I didnt have enough old primochill (no plasticizer problems) and had to buy new tubing, I wouldnt be trying to figure out how to slow it from leaching ie weeks vs months, either sucks... I would be trying different things like boiling tubing or hot water etc, trying to get it to leach out prior to build, then clean it with rifle bore/rag after cutting into approximate size runs I need. But if you find something that accelerates it, ie hot water + acidic ph, in the future I will soak my tubing that way then clean prior to use.
.

the problem might have been worse this time.
I have read people reporting the plasticizers forming continueous for a full year, and can accumulate as thick as a 0.5mm thick white film.

People have tried to clean it, but then it seems after all the film formed, the tubes turns brittle, and is proned to crack when bent beyond 90' during re-installation. pretty messy stuff.

I haven't been to that stage yet.. but reading it... was enough for me.

 

[RGE]

The plasticizer will only leach from inner bore, which is why inner bore plasticizer free tubing doesnt have that issue. The plasticizer will not leach out from entire tubing, and even if it did, the tubing wouldnt "crack" or be that brittle, it would just kink at the tightest bend radius. But I wouldnt believe that it even kinks more since it is just inner bore leaching plasticizer, though doesnt surprise me at all that someone would claim it.

People claimed 20+C better temps when changing tim, ie IC diamond even published that incredulous temp claim, but I dont believe everything I read on the internet.

Do you have any pics of people showing cracked tubing or a link to someone that claimed it? that I have to see.

 

[bluezero5]

sure. start reading this page:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1199158/plasticizer-problems-discussion-gallery/60

people posting some of the thick sediments..
I will find u the picture of the tube cracking too.. think that's from another forum..

 

[RGE]

I have read that thread, even posted in it.

But I didnt see any cracked tubing which is what I was asking about, just typical plasticizer leaching. I also didnt see anyone that claimed to have cleaned it after several months then came back thick.

And on that same page link, post 67, primochill blue tubing has very thick plasticizer after 3 weeks, and was using just distilled water and silver kill coil, no copper sulfate, so dont see that using a kill coil and no copper sulfate is going to resolve anything. That batch clearly had more plasticizer than my batch of primochill blue tubing.
Same link, post 67, http://www.overclock.net/t/1199158/plasticizer-problems-discussion-gallery/60#post_16279959

And another silver coil and distilled with bad plasticizer leach after a month, post 186.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1199158/plasticizer-problems-discussion-gallery/180#post_16457810

And another silver coil and distilled only 3 days of primochill blue and plasticizer buildup, post 390.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1199158/plasticizer-problems-discussion-gallery/380#post_16625539

And one month of plain distilled water, no silver or pt nuke, post 490.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1199158/plasticizer-problems-discussion-gallery/480#post_16897414

First 5 pics I ran into 3 using silver coil, 1 just distilled, only 1 using pt nuke, all 5 clouded in days to 4 weeks. Only thing that I would believe is going to improve the issue, is less plasticizer or inner bore free plasticizer, ie batch variables.

Here is one of my posts in that thread, post 209. Pic 1 is 3 months of using tygon 3603, with bad plasticizer leach and cloudy tubing. And pic 2 is 6 months after using tygon bev 443x plasticizer free tubing, which is crystal clear after 6 months. Both loops have pt nuke and 10% antifreeze, 2nd pic + g11 dye. Beverage tubing bends fine in that pic.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1199158/plasticizer-problems-discussion-gallery/200#post_16461186

 

[bluezero5]

yeah, in fact that thread contributed to most of the silver kill coil claims on clouding tubes. However, another same user reported the same using just distill and mayhem. It is however more obvious that people using CuSO4 seems clouding 'faster' than others. I think on that thread there was a person reporting clouding in just 1 week..

anyway. I am looking for the other pic for u.. that's pretty disgusting stuff.

 

[Mpegger]

My original loop was 100% SilverTygon. I had that loop sealed for nearly 2 years straight, only topping off the res once or twice (I'm guessing because of whatever air may have been caught here and there). When I redid the loop and drained it, the water was not cloudy or dirty in any way. I took apart all the blocks and pump, expecting there to be some kind of "crud" of some form or another as I've read in other postings ("..always clean out your loop!"), but aside from what appeared to be normal oxidation just from time its been in use, there was no "crud" to speak of. Can't say much for the tubing as being silver, you can't really see inside it to begin with.

When I redid the loop, I used a mix of the original SilverTygon tubing, and some regular clear tygon, with the clear mainly being used to extend outside the case to the now external rad and fill tube. I used a small piece of silver strip in the fill tube, and most of the loop inside the case is still the SilverTygon. This was from about 1 year ago and again, aside from having to top off the fill tube every couple of months (not sure why I have to fill so often as there are no leaks; does thin wall Tygon breathe?), the water and the clear Tygon is still clear. I did just now however notice that the clear Tygon tubing was a little cloudy on the outside of the tubing itself, which was remedied with just rubbing the substance off the exterior (guess the outside was dirty).

All this time, I do no other maintenance to the loop other then topping it off when needed. The only time the loop comes apart is if I have to take it apart to change a component. I do not "clean out" the loop in any way or form, and the only substance in the loop, other then the distilled water that I use, is a silver strip and the SilverTygon tubing.

I'm going to be redoing the loop soon and will be using the same combination of SilverTygon and clear Tygon. No cleaning of component either, as I don't expect them to be dirty.

 

[RGE]

silver tygon has a plasticizer free inner bore, hence the no plasticizer leach. If I wanted silver color, that would be my first choice, given plasticizer free bore.

I would rather use dye + clear tygon beverage plasticizer free tubing, than the blue primochill in some of those pics. Even if dye fell out of solution, which is hard to imagine given it is water soluble, it would be a fraction of the amount of that plasticizer clinging to walls of the tubing in some of those pics, and the tubing plasticizer being used is not water soluble.

 

[bluezero5]

I think the community has spoken on the consensus of tubing clouding..

#1 cause: Poor brand / Batch of Product
#2 others: each has their own story
#3 CuS04: many seem to have experienced acceleration of clouding from it. (including me.)

 

[S_I_N]

cloudy tubing is why I switch to colored tubing. I use distilled water and PT Nuke only. Plus I drain fluash and refill every 6 months. My rez is always clear no clouding. But I have used XSPC tubing Master Kleer Mod my Toys tubing Home depot in the clear range. For my colored tubing I went with Primochill LRT

The XSPC turned yellow real fast I was like wth!!! this aint happening, Thats when I switched to the mod my toys stuff from PPCS which stayed clearer longer but again it did eventually cloud up. My choice of tubing has limits due to me using the 7/16 over 1/2 barb for a no clamp look. But I'll say this the LRT so far has been impressive to me. Outside of one small collapse last week of a longer than I wanted section. Was my fault it collapsed due to me trying to hide it more.

 

[bluezero5]

i am still a believer than more than 1 drop pf PT nuke will accelerate tube clouding.
At one point I was using Primochill, 1 week after, I was clouded .. like WHITE tube, and other than the brand to blame, the only thing I could have done wrong, was adding 2 drops instead of 1 drop of PT nuke. (cause I thought then I had LOTs of water, and more won't hurt.).

I have since switched to master kleer tubes with silver kill coil.
8 months in. No clouding.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

I just added 3 drops of Dead-Water in my loop. I know I'am close to 2-3 liters of water in it and wanted to be safe.

Just doing leak tests and hope the NEW PrimoChill Advanced LRT doesn't go clouding as its only been almost 24 hrs of liquid in the loop and don't really see any. I have read and seen pics of this new tubing of doing well from a week+ use and didn't cloud. I hope they really came through this time and fixed this issue.