Is my Reserator tubing dissolving?

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scissorfighter

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Hey Gang. I've got what might appear to be a stupid question, and keep in mind it's coming from a water cooling newbie about 1.5 months into his first watercooled system. I've got a Zalman Reserator, hooked up to the accompaning Zalman CPU block and a Swiftech VGA block. I'm using the silicone tubing that came with the Res, and the unit is filled with distilled water and Swiftech Hydrx additive.

Over the last week I've noticed that the "action" of the flow indicator has become relaxed, as if the pump is getting tired. Also, the clear plastic tube of the indicator is becoming clouded with a blue "haze". So I took it all apart today, and was suprised to find the interior of everything coated with a relatively thick layer of blue "goop." It's similar in thickness to, say, chocolate pudding at room temperature. If I reach my hand down into the reserator and drag my finger up the side, a decent glob of this stuff comes out. All the tubes are coated inside with it.

So, this being my first water rig, I don't know what I'm looking it. It might be alge, but it's not like any alge I've ever seen in my fish-tank days. And I thought Hydrx was supposed to inhibit alge growth? I can't imagine that this is baterical growth because there's so much of it and it came on relatively quickly. So that leaves one other alternative... is my silicone tubing melting from the inside out, perhaps due to a bad reaction with the Hydrx? The goop is exactly the same color as the tubing.

If so, now what?

Thanks all,
Ryan
 
wow...........sounds nasty............

a few questions: are you using any fittings other than those that came with the reserator, in addition to the swiftec block?

have you opened up your blocks to have a look at what is going on inside them?

what have your temps been like?

sacrifice a short length of your tubing (about 2 cm) and slit it open so that you can lay it out flat and examine the internal surface for any pitting. what do you find?
 
Thanks for the reply. I'm only using the fittings that came with the Reserator. I have not opened the blocks (I tried to open the Zalman CPU block, but could not get the bottom off,) but I can look into the CPU block a little and see the goop down inside. I'm hoping I can flush it out with some high-pressure hot water.

As for the tubing, I split open a small 2" long piece, and it looks perfect. No pitting or any other indication that it may be dissolving. But I guess it might not be noticible, given the flow of the water and that the dissolving action would probably be very uniform.

Temps have been fine, and not varied since I set the unit up. CPU is around 35-38C at idle. To be honest though, I didn't think to check before I took everything down.... I wasn't expecting to find this!
 
with regard to the waterblocks...................i was kind of wondering if there might have been some evidence of galvanic reaction on any of the internal surfaces...............

there SHOULD NOT be any, but if one anti-galvanic coating started to attack another anti-galvanic coating..................i dont' know. you situation just sounds really strange and unfortunate.

for myself, in an attempt to avoid that sort of problem, i made it a point to use only plastic, brass and copper material, in addition to my silicon tubing. used teflon tape to seal, since that is also non-reactive..............

did you use any thread sealing compounds?
 
Nope, no thread sealing compounds. The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to think it's a Hydrx-tubing reaction. Especially given that the sludge is exactly the same color as the tubing. I'm going to flush the system and try a different coolant additive, like Zerex.
 
how long have you had the hydrx running in the loop? Are you changing out the fluid every 6 months -1yr? Also... are you using distilled water with the hydrx?
 
Krazy_Joe said:
how long have you had the hydrx running in the loop? Are you changing out the fluid every 6 months -1yr? Also... are you using distilled water with the hydrx?
Click to expand...

Wow...Krazy Joe reading will take you a long ways, you should try it sometime. The answer to every single one of your questions is in the mans original post....*sigh* people should really learn to be more attentive.

As to the goop, icky, when you clean your system, you should try to actually preserve as much of the goop as possible, bottle it all up, would be nice to get some pics of it, sounds neat :) Although I wouldn't want it in my system hehe.
 
good luck with the fluid flush and coolant changeover, i hope that it solves your problems.

my comment regarding anti-galvanic coatings might be misunderstood by some, so i will try to clairify things a bit.

everyone who watercools should know that having two different metals in the same cooling loop can result in the more active metal going into solution in the water and re-depositing on the less active metal. the water acts an an ion bridge between the two metals, carrying the metallic ions one way and electrons back, to keep the cycle going.

distilled water and quality coolant additives help to combat that problem.

both swiftec and zalman also know about the problem as well, and so coat active areas of their blocks with materials that are supposed to act as barriers to the galvanic reaction. normally it really is quite effective.

what i was thinking, since both the zalman and swiftec coatings are blue, is that one anti-galvanic coating was more active than the other anti-galvanic coating, and started going into solution. it's the same situation, just different materials.

it's a weird idea. but, then again, this is a pretty weird situation.
 
what i was thinking, since both the zalman and swiftec coatings are blue, is that one anti-galvanic coating was more active than the other anti-galvanic coating, and started going into solution. it's the same situation, just different materials.

it's a weird idea. but, then again, this is a pretty weird situation.
Click to expand...

Not so weird idea! I spoke with Wes at Sharka Computers this afternoon about it and he said it was most likely the additives used and it has happened before. He thought it was the blue coating coming off from inside the block. He thought it was highly unlikely that the tube was disintegrating as it's just tubing.
 
good to know that i am not COMPLETELY off my rocker....... :)

anyone feel like trying a sacrificial anode?
 
Not so weird idea! I spoke with Wes at Sharka Computers this afternoon about it and he said it was most likely the additives used and it has happened before. He thought it was the blue coating coming off from inside the block. He thought it was highly unlikely that the tube was disintegrating as it's just tubing.

That's an interesting theory. But how much coating can there really be? I mean, there was a lot of this gunk in the system, and the interior surface area of those blocks is pretty small. If the "coating" on the insides of them is the thickness of a single coat of spray paint, for example, that doesn't amount to very much physical material. But I was almost scooping the goo out of the system, and the reserator has a pretty big volume to it, all of which was covered on the inside with this goo. I wish I had thought to perserve some of it, as Erasmus suggested.

Also, maybe I should clarify a little more... it's not like I found 4 pounds of mashed potatoes in there, I don't want to over-exaggerate. For example, if I took a Q-tip and pushed it 1/2" into one of the tubes, swabbed it around the inside once, and withdrew it, the the entire end would be covered with a thin layer of goop, just enough to obscure all the white of the Q-tip. Picture what would happen if you dipped a Q-tip into a container of Hershey's chocolate syurp. You know, it would be thin enough to run off some, but would leave a solid coating on the tip. Except in my case, the gunk is not thin, but it's thick, like jello. And the interior of the entire system was coated with a layer of the stuff, similar in thickness to what I just described. I don't know how a thin galvanic coating could transform into such a large volume of gunk.

Anyway, I started a new experiment yesterday. I took a sample of the coolant solution and a small section of tube, sterilized them, and sealed them in a sterilized canning jar. I'll let it sit for a month and see if the tube starts to dissolve.
 
the reserator uses the same coating as the interior of the zalman block.

if the hydrx additive is dissolving the coating off the interior of the zalman waterblock, then it is most likely also dissolving material off the interior of the reserator.

the hydrx is most likely not taking material off the swiftec block, since are both swiftec product.

as for the thickness of the coating...........it can be quite a lot thicker than a coat of spray paint, since it is put on using an anodization process.
 
Your post scared sh*t out of Me. Just few months ago I've delivered pretty exprecive (~3900$ USA) custom quiet system I've build to one of My clients. I've used Resorator to cool CPU and GPU. Though I've used car coolant/demi water mixture and Zalman big grafic waterblock(simple alu block anodized). I've choose Zalman GPU block to avoid any galvanic/electrolitic danger.
I hope I want have that man coming back with His system full of goo :(

Normaly one can expect problems when using cooper and alluminium in combination with water. On other hand anodizing aluminum helps. Though it doesn't complitly stop process.
Considering that Resorator is big I supose color they used when anodizing resorator it self started to loose up from galvanic proces. Water/aditive mixture might be wrong and GPU waterblock might be starter of a process.
I've disliked Swiftech CPU blocks couse they where combining copper and aluminum. Thats why I dislke slightly a Zalman block to. Though Zalman gold plated copper part. Hence copper is not directly exposed to water wich is in combination with huge aluminium surface. Adding Copper GPU block and it coused proces to start. Atleast I belive so. Like Zalman block acts almost like ALU block cause gold is isolating copper and resorator is aluminum hence aluminum like system that was/should be in balance. Added copper jsut started it. I belive inside of a CPU waterblock anodized layer is also disolving/reacting with mixture. If I where You I would not use GPU block for while to see how does system work without of it. Better sad I'm afraid You will clean the system use other additive and have same thing sooner or later casue I belive GPU block starts it.
I hope Your pump have't got any goo inside. I hope waterflow is just slower cause other parts are covered in goo.

I might be wrong though.
I would play safe and tryed it with other mixture and without of GPU block.


Good luck,


MD
 
Hey, you might be onto something there. Now that I look closer at the interior of the Res, there is definately a change in appearance of the surface below where the water line would be. Maybe my "dissolving tubes" theory is all wet, and it's really the inside of the Res falling apart. It looks like it. Attached is a pic. So, if that's the case, how do I avoid this galvanic corrosion, if that's what it is?

Of course I'll try a different coolant additive, like Zerex, but should I also change to a different GPU block, perhaps an all copper, or a gold-plated one?

res1.jpg
 
i believe that the point is that havig copper and aluminum together is bad.

the reserator is all aluminum, so changing the GPU block to all copper really wouldn't help, since you would still have both copper and aluminum in the loop...........

as for how to combat galvanic reactions, you remember that i mentioned using a sacrificial anode earlier?

usually they are made out of magnesium. that is what they use in waterheaters, and you can get one intended for use in a waterheater at a fine hardware store near you............

the sacrificial anode is made of a material that is more active than the material it is protecting. the material of the anode rod is dissolved away in place of the reserator, and some of it gets deposited on to the inner inner surface.

problem: water heaters are open systems ensuring that the Mg ion concentration never gets ALL that high, whereas you cooling loop is a closed system, meaning that ion concentration will keep going up until it hits saturation point. i do not know if these high levels of ions in solution will cause a problem.
 
Ok, so I decided to take apart the VGA block and see what I could find left for residue. Unfortunately, I had previously attempted to flush out the system with large volumes of hot water, which removed most of the goop. But there was still a little bit left, and I got a couple pictures. The pictures don't do justice to the color. It really does match the color of the reserator.

One picture is of the interior of the water block, as you can see there are no surface problems whatsoever. Near the top you can see whats left of the residue, clinging to the corners. The other picture is a close-up of a Q-tip with the gunk on it. There's not much here. Before I flushed the system, there was A LOT of it, thicker and deeper blue in color. It reminds me of blue gel toothpaste, both in color and consistency (but probably not taste.)

block.jpg


qtip.jpg
 
I run a Zalman water block also. It has been slightly modded by me and a couple drill bits. :D Reason I mention this is that when I put it back together the copper base carved grooves into the aluminum cover. Now that is a perfect recipe for galvanic corrosion, copper and Al in direct contact with each other.

But I have had Zero corrosion problems. Good ol'e Water Wetter... :cool:

This leads me to believe that you are not having a copper aluminum problem. But actually a problem between the Anodize coating and your water additive, Hydrix.

This is why I tend to stick to the auto style coolants and additives over the recent products put out by water cooling companies. Auto products, generally speaking have been tested over time and in much more severe conditions.
 
What's wrong with running just distilled water w/o any additives?

I'm using a reserator as well, but with just distilled water. I've had it for about a month and I don't have any problems yet *knock on wood* I'm using the stock CPU block and a Zalman GPU block though.
 
so that experiment u were doing...putting it in the jar with hydrx to see if the tube will dissolve...how is it coming along?
has the tube dissolved yet?
 
Greetings most exalted ones...

I spent a while today helping a friend completely strip a Reserator down to it's component parts. If you use just distilled H20 in the system it will run damn near forever without a hitch. All the problems Zalman has seen can be traced to using tap water or putting additives into the solution that cause the symptoms that many people have seen. Moral of story is that "be happy" with distilled H20 :)

Psst.... Don't tell anyone I said this but their is a pipe dream of mine that Zalman is coming out with an add on device that can be added onto the circuit to any current Reserator or bought with one new that will dramatically drop CPU temps. I would also expect that they might be adding a plastic see through top instead of the aluminum one currently being used. Think about an Aqua Computer Aquatube where you have this nice visual effect where the coolant gets sprayed onto a plexiglass plate. Now think about a little dome instead of the plate and some LED's to light up the coolant. Sounds pretty cool huh? How about a Reserator that doesn't have any of this galvanic reaction problems with add-in fluids and a change in the water blocks to copper? Look for this stuff to "possibly" appear in 3-4 months time. ;)
 
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