Corrosion in Reservoir?

[babelmh13]

So I was cleaning my case yesterday when I noticed what appeared to be some corrosion on the silver in my reservoir..

In my loop I use:
-EKWB copper/acrylic blocks
-Silver bitspower compression fittings
-EKWB Coolstream XTX240, XSPC RX360 V3 radiators
-A Bitspower Water Tank Z-Multi 250
Inline with a silver .999 kill coil in it (see picture)
-PrimochillFlex LRT1/2"x3/4" (Clear) tubing
-Plain distilled water

If you look closely at the picture of the reservoir, you can see what looks like some rust clinging to my kill coil, anti-cyclone tube, and that little anticylone fitting the kill coil is kind of climbing into.

I'm pretty sure the anticyclone parts in that reservoir are silver and not nickel but other than those, there shouldnt be any conflicting metals causing this in my loop so I'm stumped as to why this is occuring..

Aside from that, I'd like some advice on how to eliminate it and prevent it from happening again. My thought is to replace the kill coil and try to scrape the rust off the parts inside the reservoir, flush the system a few times using new distilled water and a biocide like PTNuke or something else (per recommendation) then drop a new kill coil in and hope that it doesnt happen again.

I do not want to be pulling radiators out of the case or anything but any insight from you guys would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Nicepants42]

Wish I were more of an expert here, but I did note a couple things.

Your anti-cyclone parts don't look like silver, and checking bitspower's website, they only list 4 products that are actually plated with silver - these are silver plated brass, mind you. They have a metric shit-ton of parts that they call 'silver shining' that are actually nickel plated brass, however. My guess is that your bitspower stuff is nickel plated brass.

My initial reaction is to think that the nickel plating isn't holding up. There've been issues in the past with nickel plating (EK), and there's plenty of supposition that you can find while googling that nickel plating and silver aren't really a good idea, and that if there's enough porosity, the copper (in the brass underneath) might start losing electrons.

I'm not an expert in this area - about all I'm good at is complaining in [H] review threads that today's AIO systems all use aluminum radiators, which is unquestionably a shitty practice. Your situation is much less clear, since the metals in your loop are relatively close on the anodic index.

I will say that your blocks and radiators don't raise any flags, for whatever that's worth. Any chance you can tell if the bitspower parts are pitted?

 

[babelmh13]

This was my suspicion and Bitspower has a rather shitty website so i couldnt confirm there. I think I found the part on frozencpu confirming your theory that it is nickel plated brass Bitspower G 1/4 Silver Shining Aqua-Pipe I (BP-WTP-C17) - FrozenCPU.com

They make a matte black one as well but that appears to also be nickel plated.

I guess my next move would be to purchase a replacement pipe and anticyclone peice that arent nickel plated.

Any suggestions on a brand?

 

[Nicepants42]

I guess my next move would be to purchase a replacement pipe and anticyclone peice that arent nickel plated.
Any suggestions on a brand?

I would suggest that your next move be to inspect those parts, not just replace them outright. Like I said, I'm not an expert and could easily be off base here - don't spend good money just because some guy on the internet posts links and sounds plausible. It should be fairly easy to tell if the nickel plating has holes in it, and seeing that would at least confirm a(the?) source of the problem. If that crap wipes away clean and the plating looks good though...I'm not sure, but I'd probably start eyeing the radiator barbs - metal to metal contact can be rough on plating.

One last question also - did you flush out your radiators before using them?

Haven't bought WC parts in quite a while, but afaik Bitspower has a good reputation.

 

[babelmh13]

Well it's not just because you mentioned it, double checking the bitspower fittings inside the reservoir, they are indeed nickel plated. And since they are the only parts inside the loop different from my past loop, and they are the only parts that are showing corrosion, its gotta be them. You backed up my diagnosis.

Regardless I dont want any nickel in my system and I'm fairly annoyed that Bitspower basically snuck it in there. I have all bitspower compression fittings and these are indeed silver, dont know why they wouldnt just use silver in the reservoir, couldnt save more than a few dollars.

I did flush out my loop with distilled water a few times before leaving it hooked up.