Water cooling coolant and additives

[silent54]

I'm looking at setting up a single loop for my cpu. I've looked at quite a few documents and posts relating to coolant and additives. I'm looking at adding color to the loop but wasn't sure whether to use UV reactive fluid such as Feser, distilled water w/ dye, or distilled water w/ UV tubing. I've seen the bad and the good comments about each, so I'm still undecided which way to go. I've read UV reactive fluids and dyes may clog the system and UV tubing has a tendency to not glow. So, any suggestions will be helpful.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Buy coloured tubing rather than add dyes, use distilled water and a killcoil,
maybe a drop of anti-algae gloop if you wish
I'm sure most will agree that is the way to go
Moto

 

[rubix_1011]

^Yes, this is the best route. Even additives don't glow as well as you might think. They ultimately do NOT cool better than plain distilled and like you mentioned, many can break down and clog your blocks. If anything, dyes are usually safer than coolants, but I don't know of many that actually glow very well.

You could always go the old-school route and soak a bunch of yellow highlighter innards in some distilled for a few days, and then use that water in clear tubing under a black light.

We used to do this with liquor bottles in college when they were empty...and the put them on shelves in front of black lights and then continue emptying more liquor bottles...

 

[silent54]

I'm looking at either a yellow or blue colored loop. If I were to go with UV tubing, what would be the best method of gaining a colored tint to the water in the reservoir? LED?

 

[rubix_1011]

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=59_413_470

Both yellow and blue UV reactive.

 

[orangejuice789]

Yes, an LED would give a nice glow to your reservoir.

 

[bejabbers]

^^ What they said.

Distilled water, kill coil, UV tubing and LED for the res. Nothing is worse than ruining hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of electronics and because you thought that coloured fluid would look cool.

 

[silent54]

I actually did the pricing using the UV tubing and coil but with all the posts and reviews contradicting one another, I figured it's best to ask before wasting time and money.

Also, I wouldn't need to add anything other than the killcoil to the distilled water? No corrosion blocker?

 

[rubix_1011]

No corrosion as long as you keep aluminium out of the loop.

 

[silent54]

Best answer selected by silent54.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Thank you for B.a man, post back progress and any other questions we can help with
Moto