Clear Tubing going Cloudy.

[azanimefan]

long time water cooler.

Only have used tubing from home depot, nothing fancy, just clear plastic tubing, used junk water pumps usually made for alternative purposes, home made reservoirs and distilled/deionized water... only used g12 (pentosin) antifreeze in the loops (about 10%). Never had a biological issue with my loops. Never had a film build up either. Of course the g12 does come with a pink/redish UV effect which is sorta cool, and it will dye your tubes a slight pink over time... so you'll have to deal with that color.

Setting that aside, I've seen this film build up on other water systems. Seems to me like a combination of PH, cheap tubing, and temps. Sadly i've no way to test this, as the last water cooling system i had was dismantled years ago.

 

[Magnitude]

My loop uses Feser Aqua Ultra Pure water. I use masterkleer clear UV blue tubing. and a combination of pure copper, and nickel coated compression fittings, radiators and waterblocks. My tubing was clear for the first... 6 months? But has clouded noticeably after around 12-18 months.

In my system, the clouding wipes off the inside of the tube! The accumulated debris on the cloth was white/blue. Suggesting that a copper based compound was being deposited on the inside of the pipes.

Maybe avoiding copper entirely would not allow it to get into the system in the first place and there for it could be deposited?
Maybe different brands of tube have different surface properties that promote or deter the build up? This is unlikely to solve the problem entirely though...
Maybe different liquids slow or speed up this process due to their purity, pH, conductivity, or chemical composition?

Pure water tends to want to un-purify itself. For example, by leaching things out of what it's touching via osmosis, or chemical reactions. Maybe exchanging the water at a regular interval will reduce this build up... and eat away at your components...

I think I'm just going to refill my system with de-min and monitor for any issues developing. It might not be pretty, but so far, that's the only impact I've experienced.

 

[caddi daddi]

buy the computer tubing, in the color you want, primoflex.
it's the plastisizer leaching out.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

I'd advise in creating a thread with the issues at hand. Times have changed and so have water cooling components. Bringing back a 2+ year old thread doesn't always help but spread outdated data.