What's a good quality soft tubing that doesn't cloud up?

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I've been looking at the possibility of doing a custom loop in an upcoming build. I've never done one before, and I don't have the experience, tools, or patience to do hardlines, so if I decide to custom cool then I'll be going with softlines. The research I've done has shown that soft tubes often cloud up, particularly if they're cheap quality and also depending on what kind of coolant used in the loop. I've heard mixed things such as to stay away from pastel coolant as it leaves residue and can clunk up and stain tubes, to transparent coolant staining the tubes, to certain coolants having chemicals that cause tubes to cloud faster - there's so much mixed info that I'm not really sure what to believe. I'm hoping some folks here have experience with soft tubes and can give some insight. Ideally, I'd like good quality soft tubes that don't cloud, or some option where the clouding wouldn't really affect the look of a build (i.e. translucent tubes or like a frosted appearance).
Just for some background info, I'm planning to build in a Meshlicious or one of SSUPD's new Meshroom cases when they come out, ITX (or mATX if the new cases will support it) so space will be somewhat limited. I don't care a whole ton about color, so likely either clear or blue coolant, modest RGB which I've heard some systems can have RGB lines to hide discoloration, etc., but nothing overly flashy. There are a whole ton of different custom loop setups in Meshlicious which I'll likely be using for some inspiration. If I don't decide to custom cool, I'll just end up going with an AIO for the CPU, or possibly one 120/140mm for each the CPU and GPU.
I've looked at some of Corsair's kits and individual components and read their starter guide for custom loops, but beyond that, I don't know much about it in general.
Thanks in advance. Hoping to learn some good stuff from you all here.
 
The biggest piece of advice I can think of is to try to never use coolants that are not transparent. They always gum up the works. Most are even labeled "for show only".

In fact, clear coolants are usually the best, that way you don't have to clean out dyes from your loop, but ones with light amounts of dyes are pretty OK too.

Most coolants use WAY more dyes than necessary to provide a coloring, and many will stain. This is especially true of red dyes for some reason.

The top recommendation is usually to use colored opaque tubing with clear fluid and to impart color to the reservoir using RGB LED's if necessary.

Don't use just any tubing. Some grades of tubing will leach plasticizer into the loop and gun up the works. I'd recommend choosing tubing that is specifically marketed towards water cooling of PC's. PrimoChill would probably be the top brand.
 
all clear tubing will discolour. i now prefer matte black and used automotive fuel line in my current build. oh and i just use a mix of antifreeze and distilled water (10/90%), like in aios.
 
Tubing like EKWB's zero maintenance tubing is really the only thing that won't discolor and that's only because its black and it isn't clear. All PVC type clear tubing will discolor eventually.
 
pendragon1 said:
all clear tubing will discolour. i now prefer matte black and used automotive fuel line in my current build. oh and i just use a mix of antifreeze and distilled water (10/90%), like in aios.
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I've never actually used antifreeze in a loop, because I don't know what else some of them mix in there, but in theory it should be the perfect coolant.

Glycols (both ethylene and propylene) serve all thee chemical properties you want in a coolant, surfactant, anti-corrosive, and anti-microbial.

Though, last time I read about it, you gained more anti-growth capability at a higher concentration. I forget where the effectivess peak was. ~20%?

I'd have to try to find that paper again.
 
Primochill lrt is the only soft tubing I'll use. I ran a loop for 5+ years untouched (just added coolant occasionally, never drained or cleaned it) with their blue tubing and despite the cpu block having a hole in the nickel plating, exposing the aluminum underneath, causing the copper gpu blocks to corrode, the tubing was still flawless. Best tubing I've ever used and I've tried about every brand out there... haven't tried eks matte black yet lol.
 
hititnquitit said:
Primochill lrt is the only soft tubing I'll use. I ran a loop for 5+ years untouched (just added coolant occasionally, never drained or cleaned it) with their blue tubing and despite the cpu block having a hole in the nickel plating, exposing the aluminum underneath, causing the copper gpu blocks to corrode, the tubing was still flawless. Best tubing I've ever used and I've tried about every brand out there... haven't tried eks matte black yet lol.
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From a quick search, it looks like PrimoChill has by far the most options for colors, thickness/diameter of the tubing, etc.
I could definitely see myself foregoing the clear and just getting a color I like and clear fluid so I don't have to worry about discoloring or fading. The PrimoFlex Advanced LRT has this blue color which looks really nice.
 
JonCZ said:
From a quick search, it looks like PrimoChill has by far the most options for colors, thickness/diameter of the tubing, etc.
I could definitely see myself foregoing the clear and just getting a color I like and clear fluid so I don't have to worry about discoloring or fading. The PrimoFlex Advanced LRT has this blue color which looks really nice.
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You used to be able to buy it by the foot from performance-pcs.com (best wcing selection you'll find)but its been awhile since I've bought any tubing. There's a father's day coupon you can use there as well that should help knock off some of the shipping.
 
I used the red primochill in like 2011-2013 and didn't have issues with it, it's not see through though more like translucent at least when I got it and I used 1/2 x 3/4 size. I have some clear mayhems in my most recent build but not been in there long.
 
If I went back to soft tubing I would just pick up Primoflex LRT in whatever color and call it a day.

I have never used a clear tubing that did not cloud up with time, even when running just distilled and silver.
 
I've never had soft tubing that did not discolor over time. Did not really matter what tubing I bought.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems the advantages of hard tubing really outweigh the extra cost and difficulty of installing. Of the ITX custom loops I've been looking at, most of them (~80%) have been hardlines. That said, I actually like the look of softlines for their flexibility, just a matter of personal preference. But with hardlines being the top of the line in water cooling (pun partially intended) I'm concerned that you might get lower quality with the softlines, not by inherent nature of the materials, but because they're not the top end and you get what you pay for. Maybe I'm wrong, and for my sake and others who like soft tubing, I hope I am.
Good advice here so far, thanks as always.
 
I am a fan of this...
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JonCZ said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems the advantages of hard tubing really outweigh the extra cost and difficulty of installing. Of the ITX custom loops I've been looking at, most of them (~80%) have been hardlines. That said, I actually like the look of softlines for their flexibility, just a matter of personal preference. But with hardlines being the top of the line in water cooling (pun partially intended) I'm concerned that you might get lower quality with the softlines, not by inherent nature of the materials, but because they're not the top end and you get what you pay for. Maybe I'm wrong, and for my sake and others who like soft tubing, I hope I am.
Good advice here so far, thanks as always.
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The trick with soft tubing is to avoid any kinks or it won't work well. It can also collapse in spots (usually at bends) and create flow issues.

Hard tubing doesn't necessarily work better, but by it's nature you should be able to avoid potential flow issues you sometimes get with soft tubing.

EK's ZMT has a very thick wall which also works to prevent flow issues. You've got to do something very wrong to have those issues with it.

Hard tubing comes with a whole lot of downsides. It's only real upside over a properly done soft setup are aesthetic.
 
Dan_D said:
The trick with soft tubing is to avoid any kinks or it won't work well. It can also collapse in spots (usually at bends) and create flow issues.

Hard tubing doesn't necessarily work better, but by it's nature you should be able to avoid potential flow issues you sometimes get with soft tubing.

EK's ZMT has a very thick wall which also works to prevent flow issues. You've got to do something very wrong to have those issues with it.

Hard tubing comes with a whole lot of downsides. It's only real upside over a properly done soft setup are aesthetic.
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I know a couple tricks to avoid kinks such as keeping lines as straight or gradually curving as possible (avoid sharp bends), and using 90-degree fittings where tight turns are necessary. This is really important in a small case where you already don't start with much space to work with, which is almost certainly what I'm going to be doing. I think this is a significant reason I've seen much more hard tubing in these ITX cases.

I'll have to check out the ZMT tubing, it looks like some of the PrimoFlex LRT have thicker walls to help avoid kinks as well.

Back to the color, I haven't found any tubes that are colored and opaque (the colored PrimoFlex LRT are faintly translucent from what I've seen and as one of the users above stated). I would suppose these would still cloud up as well, but hopefully to a lesser extent. As long as the tubing color itself doesn't fade, I'm good with that.
 
If you want black tubing use something like watercool's EPDM or any other brand EPDM which you won't have to waste time cleaning out like you do with ZMT.

Hard tubing is popular because building RGB-ified PCs with watercooling has become a fad, that's all there is to it really. Even before I started watercooling people were doing hard tube builds.
 
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Primochill soft with EK Cryofuel clear coolant is a dream come true highly recommend.
 
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