My first custom water loop, clear coolant turned murky white

[wilaw1115]

Just finally built my first custom water cooling loop. Temps and everything are good, however the coolant (Distilled water + Mayhems XT-1 Nuke) turned murky white after 2 days of continuous usage.

I am using Thermaltake 360 RL radiators, their D5 pump/reservoir, M2 block and PET-G tubing. I've soon learnt that Thermaltake uses aluminium rads and copper block which is not a good idea...

The white murky water smells a lil funky and I've honestly no idea what it is. It seems to be dissolved into the water.

 

To help clear things up I've:

Rinsed and shaken the rads with near boiling DI water 3 times. (have not used vinegar yet, not sure if it'll help my situation)

Rinsed every water cooling component with DI water

Used PET-G so there shouldn't be any plasticizers

Left the murky water in a container for a couple of days and it haven't changed at all (so not air bubbles)

Drained and refilled with new coolant, however after a day or two the water slowly becomes murky again...

 

Here are some screenshots of the built and weird... white stuff....

 

Anyone know what these stuff are? Is it just some leftover junk from the rads or some corrosion going on with the alu and copper combo?

 

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

 

P.S The pics of my system are when I just finished building it, see how the coolant is very clear vs 2 days later coolant in the bottle.

[Stevebit56]

Who’s clear coolant are you using?

[wilaw1115]

Distilled water + Mayhems XT-1 Nuke

[RollinLower]

my best bet is that that is indeed corrosion happening from the mixed metals. i don't understand how it could be corroding so badly tough, asn Mayhems Nuke has anti-corrosive properties and should really help when dealing with this. 

 

[Tam3n]

Not meaning to blame you (more like blame Thermaltake), but if I speak my mind, using copper and aluminium in the same loop is asking for big corrosion problems. You may get away with it if you use heavy enough corrosion inhibitors, but aluminium and copper just want to "kill each other" naturally.

 

On the Thermalfake website they state that do not use distilled water with this setup, but instead a premixed coolant with corrosion inhibitors in it. The fittings are copper too.

Also, on the EKWB website, they have big yellow cation to not use the D5 pumps with aluminium radiators...

 

That's why people go mostly with all copper with custom loops. It may be a bit more expensive, but saves you most of the troubles with corrosion. I wouldn't dare to run aluminium with copper, even with all the worlds inhibitors in the coolant...

[For Science!]

1 hour ago, wilaw1115 said:

Distilled water + Mayhems XT-1 Nuke

While aluminium + copper is not a good idea. In this case it is becuase you used XT-1 nuke with PETG tubing. It's a shame this chart is not pasted absolutely everywhere that sells Mayhem,s stuff.

 

[Limecat86]

7 minutes ago, For Science! said:

While aluminium + copper is not a good idea. In this case it is becuase you used XT-1 nuke with PETG tubing. It's a shame this chart is not pasted absolutely everywhere that sells Mayhem,s stuff.

--SNIP--

4 minutes late, but yeah, this was exactly my thought too. Mayhems XT-1 Nuke contains Ethylene Glycol which is not compatible with PETG...

[wilaw1115]

51 minutes ago, For Science! said:

While aluminium + copper is not a good idea. In this case it is becuase you used XT-1 nuke with PETG tubing. It's a shame this chart is not pasted absolutely everywhere that sells Mayhem,s stuff.

 

Wish I found this out earlier! Thanks for letting me know, guess ill try to clean everything up and use distilled water only to see if problem still occurs.

On the other hand, technically for me using distilled water there shouldn't be any corrosion going on (at least not for the first 2 days) since there are no actual ions inside the distilled water for the different metals to corrode each other, is that correct? So I can safely assume corrosion isn't the problem and maybe is the PET-G tube melting from the XT-1 Nuke?

[For Science!]

6 minutes ago, wilaw1115 said:

Wish I found this out earlier! Thanks for letting me know, guess ill try to clean everything up and use distilled water only to see if problem still occurs.

On the other hand, technically for me using distilled water there shouldn't be any corrosion going on (at least not for the first 2 days) since there are no actual ions inside the distilled water for the different metals to corrode each other, is that correct? So I can safely assume corrosion isn't the problem and maybe is the PET-G tube melting from the XT-1 Nuke?

Well as soon as water is in contact with your metals, they will start leeching ions. And so techincally galvanic corrosion will always be happening. Whether it will cause visibly noticeable damage - I don't think so. But either way as a minimum I would get a PETG friendly anti-corrosive, biocidal coolant such as EK-cryofuel in there asap, and in the short-medium term consider swapping out your radiator for a copper/brass one. Anti-corrosives only do so much, and in my opinion are to usually deal with the differences in a compatible loop (copper/brass/steel/nickel) not to let copper+aluminimum mix.

[wilaw1115]

30 minutes ago, For Science! said:

Well as soon as water is in contact with your metals, they will start leeching ions. And so techincally galvanic corrosion will always be happening. Whether it will cause visibly noticeable damage - I don't think so. But either way as a minimum I would get a PETG friendly anti-corrosive, biocidal coolant such as EK-cryofuel in there asap, and in the short-medium term consider swapping out your radiator for a copper/brass one. Anti-corrosives only do so much, and in my opinion are to usually deal with the differences in a compatible loop (copper/brass/steel/nickel) not to let copper+aluminimum mix.

Thanks, I'll order EK-cyrofuel and give it a try!

[wilaw1115]

I just noticed this as well......even all my Thermaltake fittings are all copper based....lol, copper fitting mounted on an aluminum radiator, who came up with that idea seriously... and they sold all of this as a bundled starter kit. Guess the culprit to the murky coolant's gotta be metal corrosion.

[Limecat86]

3 hours ago, wilaw1115 said:

I just noticed this as well......even all my Thermaltake fittings are all copper based....lol, copper fitting mounted on an aluminum radiator, who came up with that idea seriously... and they sold all of this as a bundled starter kit. Guess the culprit to the murky coolant's gotta be metal corrosion.

It is most likely a combination of both. If you have the funds I would replace that radiator for a copper one.

Still, replace the coolant too to EK-cryofuel as suggested earlier by @For Science! or Mayhems X1.