Bacteria, maybe an old question, but well here it is again!

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 7:49 pm

Hi,

I am all giddy with my new reserator and vga block all raring to go.

Now i must get Water Wetter. from redline right, only one type right? eh?

Ok, well, I searched for wetter and for bacteria in the forums. Found stuff mentioning it, found stuff saying i should get some bacterial-cidal sort of thing, however, I am unsure as to WHICH one to get and where from. Anything I know degrades in warm temperature/over time/when left in open air. It is supposed to. Other things corrode or can hurt plastic or rubber. Other things are so freakin toxic you would be amazed how easily they could harm someone yet are commonplace in the bio/medical world.
So
what should I get? I am not cleaning this thing of bugs in 5 months... blech.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 8:21 pm

They make that sort of thing for room humidifiers and I have seen it at stores that sell them (Kmart, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, etc).

However, if it a closed system where you don't have to worry about chemical odors, I would just add a small amount of chlorine bleach (Clorox, etc). I have even used a small amount of chlorine bleach in a room humidifier without any strong orders permeating the room. A little bit of chlorine bleach goes a long way.

Post by **Rusty075** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 9:00 pm

m0002a wrote: A little bit of chlorine bleach goes a long way.

Yes, a long way towards causing horrible corrosion.

Bleach is a powerful oxidizer, and oxidizing inside your mixed metal cooling loop is a bad, bad thing. (and besides, bleach in very low concentrations makes an effective fertilizer)

The Water Wetter alone will act as a anti-biotic inside the loop. My Reserator ran 9+ months with just DI and water wetter, and had no signs or corrosion or growth.

yeha · Post by **yeha** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 10:02 pm

how would mixing in antifreeze or one of the various alcohols perform? i know that above certain concentrations they'll be toxic to any kind of life, but how do they affect the components?

Splinter · Post by **Splinter** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 11:11 pm

Fill it with vodka

I'd say a good splash of rubbing alcohol would help things out. It has a lower specific heat than water though, so it might detract from the waters cooling potential to some degree

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 4:12 am

hm, so water wetter has some anti-microbial tendencies? This is good. Yeah, I worry about alcohol and rubber/plastic in a heat situation.

thanx. I hope this does it.... i live in an area by the ocean that has an enormous amount of possible bacteria that might infect the system of anything/anyone.

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 8:03 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:thanx. I hope this does it.... i live in an area by the ocean that has an enormous amount of possible bacteria that might infect the system of anything/anyone.

are you on LI somewhere, or one of the boroughs?

by the way, here's a link to a sticky with some good information on additives...including a running thread on how bad/good alcohol is as an additive.

jamesavery22 · Post by **jamesavery22** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 8:20 am

Never liked water wetter. Smells like something that the word filter on here would block. Leaves a residue on the majority of systems Ive seen people use it in. My vote goes for Propylene Glycol AF, Distiled, and iodine.

eander315 · Post by **eander315** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:48 am

I use distilled water, Water Wetter, and a small amount of very strong algicide in my Reserator and home-made radiator. I don't believe Water Wetter will completely inhibit algae growth on its own, though the tubing supplied with the Reserator isn't clear, which should help prevent growth as well. I've only been running it a few months so I don't know how well the mixture works, but I'm not anticipating any problems.

Jamesavery's suggestion is probably better than Water Wetter though, as the typical water temperatures in a cooling loop cause the silicates to fall out of Water Wetter.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 4:13 pm

jamesavery22 wrote:Never liked water wetter. Smells like something that the word filter on here would block. Leaves a residue on the majority of systems Ive seen people use it in. My vote goes for Propylene Glycol AF, Distiled, and iodine.

Iodine....

I think that loves to react with metals. Its a non-metal. I think it wants to make a salt out of my reserator.... I wonder if it could harden rubber/plastic acting as an oxidizing agent.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 1:41 pm

airspirit's red mix

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 2:51 pm

that looks about right.

I bought water wetter though. It looks like it works very well for many setups so that means it should work fine in a non-oc'd setup with a Resserator rig.

anti-bacterial is my quest now. I think no one has an answer for this. Like ever/anywhere. blech.

I also bought Poland Spring's Distilled water. Says its "steam distilled" Which well is the only way I thought it was done

Will there ever be an ACTUAL biocide recommendation?

I have not seen one ever after reading over 200 forum posts on here and procooling

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 3:05 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:that looks about right.

I bought water wetter though. It looks like it works very well for many setups so that means it should work fine in a non-oc'd setup with a Resserator rig.

anti-bacterial is my quest now. I think no one has an answer for this. Like ever/anywhere. blech.

I also bought Poland Spring's Distilled water. Says its "steam distilled" Which well is the only way I thought it was done

Will there ever be an ACTUAL biocide recommendation?

I have not seen one ever after reading over 200 forum posts on here and procooling

Do a search for red mix on Pro/forums. airspirit is the member who came up with it and I find it to be the best coolant combination I've yet tried. The biocide he uses is chlorine-free pool stuff; activated chlorine dioxide (no straight chlorine--this stuff is different and supposedly does not corrode metals; I know I've had zero corrosion so far). I use Aquamira brand activated chlorine dioxide in my red mix and have had no biogrowth since. I use less Dexcool than airspirit does though, because of my water block (Storm G4).

-Ed

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:39 pm

http://www.clo2.com/wtupgrade/treatment.html

check it.

kinda oxidizes still.

also, it doesnt like warm environments as far as stability.

I duno how chlorine was attached to oxygen so easily.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 6:51 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:http://www.clo2.com/wtupgrade/treatment.html

check it.

kinda oxidizes still.

also, it doesnt like warm environments as far as stability.

I duno how chlorine was attached to oxygen so easily.

Interesting...

Oh well. No signs of corrosion whatsoever in my loop, but the only metals in my loop are copper and brass.

-Ed

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 7:45 pm

Edward Ng wrote:
~El~Jefe~ wrote:http://www.clo2.com/wtupgrade/treatment.html

check it.

kinda oxidizes still.

also, it doesnt like warm environments as far as stability.

I duno how chlorine was attached to oxygen so easily.
Interesting...

Oh well. No signs of corrosion whatsoever in my loop, but the only metals in my loop are copper and brass.

-Ed

You know what? according to my readings on this stuff, I believe that all the ClO2 is absent in your machine, or else is reduced % wise of some sort.
I read that 1% solution of the stuff is stable at 5C in a bottle for a few months. If somehow assisted on some molecular level and not chemically to remain in a more stable form in the water, then so be it, I havent read about that. However:

What I believe, and this is a shot in the dark, is that your system was biologically purged and santized once you threw this stuff in. Nothing that was going to survive to colonize ever could, it was nuked from above by the toxic solution. I would be interested to know where the ClO2 went after all of that hot temperature and churning and time. I am assuming it didnt make some sort of salt and instead vacated in a gas, maybe it combined wiht he odd and impure mix of the coolant? I believe the reserator to not be a gas leaking system, but i could be wrong, especially after months.

Nevertheless, it worked. I saw one site calling their industrial anti-microbial product ADOX. Kinda cool stuff. My dad, a chemist, said that it must be horribly unstable for industrial usage. It turns out that the evolved gas form of it is actually created at the very site of its usage by these companies so as to minimize loss.

I still am left up you know what's creek figuring on an anti-bacterial fix.
My dad said he would use Methanol or if not, isopropyl alcohol to clean the thing out. He even said that he doubts it would harm plastic if diluted well enough in water at a low concentration. He said it could damage some I guess, but suggested that it be used as a flush. He said and it makes sense, that Methanol is basically water, as water itself is an alcohol

interesting right? we forget about that. That famous methanol as coolant page is correct. Big ol' dad also said that like a 5% methanol or 10% even would never effect a human negatively in a relatively closed system, he uses it to wash his walls off on a lunch break at 100% strength.

He said its very difficult to buy, pure grade methanol. No one around here wants to get it to even him, as one slight heat source or spark makes for a completely clear and insanely hot fire that would melt your house and you skin before you knew something was even burning.

whew alot of typing! I thought i would contribute though

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 7:50 pm

i use 92% distilled water, 8% nulon ultra cool. it's uv green and i haven't changed the water for over a year now and it still runs fine

i can't guarantee it but a lot of the coolant products in the auto section of your local department store (e.g. kmart) should work fine in your watercooling loop. after all, a watercooling loop is remarkably similar to an engine cooling loop

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:06 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:
Edward Ng wrote:
~El~Jefe~ wrote:http://www.clo2.com/wtupgrade/treatment.html

check it.

kinda oxidizes still.

also, it doesnt like warm environments as far as stability.

I duno how chlorine was attached to oxygen so easily.
Interesting...

Oh well. No signs of corrosion whatsoever in my loop, but the only metals in my loop are copper and brass.

-Ed
You know what? according to my readings on this stuff, I believe that all the ClO2 is absent in your machine, or else is reduced % wise of some sort.
I read that 1% solution of the stuff is stable at 5C in a bottle for a few months. If somehow assisted on some molecular level and not chemically to remain in a more stable form in the water, then so be it, I havent read about that. However:

What I believe, and this is a shot in the dark, is that your system was biologically purged and santized once you threw this stuff in. Nothing that was going to survive to colonize ever could, it was nuked from above by the toxic solution. I would be interested to know where the ClO2 went after all of that hot temperature and churning and time. I am assuming it didnt make some sort of salt and instead vacated in a gas, maybe it combined wiht he odd and impure mix of the coolant? I believe the reserator to not be a gas leaking system, but i could be wrong, especially after months.

Nevertheless, it worked. I saw one site calling their industrial anti-microbial product ADOX. Kinda cool stuff. My dad, a chemist, said that it must be horribly unstable for industrial usage. It turns out that the evolved gas form of it is actually created at the very site of its usage by these companies so as to minimize loss.

I still am left up you know what's creek figuring on an anti-bacterial fix.
My dad said he would use Methanol or if not, isopropyl alcohol to clean the thing out. He even said that he doubts it would harm plastic if diluted well enough in water at a low concentration. He said it could damage some I guess, but suggested that it be used as a flush. He said and it makes sense, that Methanol is basically water, as water itself is an alcohol interesting right? we forget about that. That famous methanol as coolant page is correct. Big ol' dad also said that like a 5% methanol or 10% even would never effect a human negatively in a relatively closed system, he uses it to wash his walls off on a lunch break at 100% strength. He said its very difficult to buy, pure grade methanol. No one around here wants to get it to even him, as one slight heat source or spark makes for a completely clear and insanely hot fire that would melt your house and you skin before you knew something was even burning.

whew alot of typing! I thought i would contribute though

You're probably not very off in your thinking; when I combine part A and B, I can smell it anywhere in my room, so I gather that is probably vaporizes at a high rate. I use very little of it, about 21-24 drops in my loop during filling. I'm not using a reserator though; my loop has a Storm G4, one Black Ice Xtreme 120, one Black Ice Pro 120, an NV-68 block, a Swiftech reservoir and a Laing DDC pump. It's closed, as you can see, but the last time I opened the loop, I didn't smell anything, particularly nothing like that smell when part A and B are mixed and setting.

Just so nobody has to go digging through pages upon pages of Pro/forum posts, airspirit's red mix is approximately 20% Dexcool or red ethylene glycol, approximately 10% Hy-per Lube Super Coolant, approximately 5% biocide and the rest pure distilled water. Personally, I've changed it up because I have far too little activated chlorine-dioxide to make 5% of my coolant, and anyway--the directions dictate very, very little in your water before drinking. Also, that huge amount of glycol would turn my coolant into a viscous goop that would be as compatible with the Storm G4 design as a Ford Excursion in Paris, France. I personally use ~10% Dexcool, ~10% Hy-Per Lube Super Coolant, ~0.5% activated chlorine dioxide and the rest pure distilled water (Deer Park brand, for East coasters who know what I mean).

All I know is that this formula works splendidly for me, so I'm sticking with it. I've had biogrowth issues in the past and this stopped it dead, and there've been no signs whatsoever of corrosion. A recent check of the system showed no precipitates whatsoever of any sort, and even the G4's nozzles were completely clog-free.

-Ed

Post by **Rusty075** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:12 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote: I believe the reserator to not be a gas leaking system, but i could be wrong, especially after months.

The Reserator tank is open to atmosphere at the top, via a small breather hole in the cap. Over long time periods even a "sealed" WC loop is gas permiable through the walls of the tubing used.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:37 pm

Rusty075 wrote:
~El~Jefe~ wrote: I believe the reserator to not be a gas leaking system, but i could be wrong, especially after months.
The Reserator tank is open to atmosphere at the top, via a small breather hole in the cap. Over long time periods even a "sealed" WC loop is gas permiable through the walls of the tubing used.

wow. didnt know that. hm.
thats freaky wigga crack.

Such a strange thing, this blue object of power.

Yeah, Ng, that's good that you confirm that. Now the question is, where did you acquire that solution? if it is so, then I would flush my system with that and distilled as I test for leaks, empty the batch and run wetter and distilled in the now sanitized loop.

Qwertyiopisme · Post by **Qwertyiopisme** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 11:51 pm

I feel slightly alienated with all the talk of ant bacterial stuff and water wetter and this and that.. In my homemade WC-ing loop (only copper, silver solder, and brass) I use tap water and have had it like that for a year or so, and the water looks just the same as it always has. (I live in gothenburg and the water here is very very soft, if that has anything to do with it).

Maybe this whole anti bactera thing is just a common myth in most cases but where a few people get problems becuase of certian circumstanses that make them out of the ordinary.

(my whole loop is: Mostly clear garden rated PVC tubing, a bit of silicone tubing, a homemade resevoir made of plexiglas, a heatercore from some car (copper), some odds and ends in brass, and a homemade waterblock made of copper soldered together with silver based solder).

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 12:16 am

i guess there are lots of factors when it comes to watercooling, and some of them are acting in your favour, qwertyiopisme

i know that if i try to run normal tap water in a loop for about a week it'll be really yucky slimy and there'll be stuff floating on top of the water in the reservoir

(speaking from experience)

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 5:26 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:
Rusty075 wrote:
~El~Jefe~ wrote: I believe the reserator to not be a gas leaking system, but i could be wrong, especially after months.
The Reserator tank is open to atmosphere at the top, via a small breather hole in the cap. Over long time periods even a "sealed" WC loop is gas permiable through the walls of the tubing used.
wow. didnt know that. hm.
thats freaky wigga crack.

Such a strange thing, this blue object of power.

Yeah, Ng, that's good that you confirm that. Now the question is, where did you acquire that solution? if it is so, then I would flush my system with that and distilled as I test for leaks, empty the batch and run wetter and distilled in the now sanitized loop.

froogle for Aquamira.

If you have a very bad biogrowth problem in your loop though, you may want to flush the system with a Ly/Pinesol mix, which you can also find out about at Pro/forums. I did hydrogen peroxide to flush my loop, but that's likely a very bad idea. Thing was I didn't have any Lysol and Pinesol on hand, and was in a hurry at the time to stop the biogrowth, and did have hydrogen peroxide handy. Anyway, it was a drain, flush real quick with hydrogen peroxide, flush with pure water, refill with coolant mix operation, so I didn't expose the loop to harsh peroxide for that long.

Edit: See here, particularly starting around post #48. This should help you; I should've tried this myself when I had the biogrowth, to see if it would work on what I had (white streamy bacterial growth, not the orange stuff they had--but when the hydrogen peroxide got to the stuff in my loop, it turned into orange clumpy crap and stank like @#$%!

).

-Ed

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 6:09 am

Hey, nice bottle thingy! I am adding that to my very small list of useful items for this project.

Hydrogen Peroxide is the best possible anti-bacterial agent. As far as I remember, it can kill 100% of bacteria. I know nothing ever claims that, but, well, the bacteria growing in your rig is very specialized and normally weak. The odd thing about bacteria that grow in a very unhealthy and off temperature environment is that they are weak in a normal environment. You wont find volcanic vent (the vents of the tactonic plates and such) bacteria living in your swimming pool, they need crappy environments. This is why I am beginning to think that the best idea is not continual amounts of biocide, but periodic flushes, this eliminates the odd stuff thats weak and stops cycling of the mini ecosystem.

I am a proponent of Isopropyl alcohol. It mixes with water very well, doesnt evaporate so easily like something like xylene would or methanol, yet is completely non toxic on the skin and ok to breath in. (alcohol rubs!) I am looking around for a cheap dealer of 50/50 medical isopropyl now to do a first flush.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 6:14 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:Hey, nice bottle thingy! I am adding that to my very small list of useful items for this project.

Hydrogen Peroxide is the best possible anti-bacterial agent. As far as I remember, it can kill 100% of bacteria. I know nothing ever claims that, but, well, the bacteria growing in your rig is very specialized and normally weak. The odd thing about bacteria that grow in a very unhealthy and off temperature environment is that they are weak in a normal environment. You wont find volcanic vent (the vents of the tactonic plates and such) bacteria living in your swimming pool, they need crappy environments. This is why I am beginning to think that the best idea is not continual amounts of biocide, but periodic flushes, this eliminates the odd stuff thats weak and stops cycling of the mini ecosystem.

I am a proponent of Isopropyl alcohol. It mixes with water very well, doesnt evaporate so easily like something like xylene would or methanol, yet is completely non toxic on the skin and ok to breath in. (alcohol rubs!) I am looking around for a cheap dealer of 50/50 medical isopropyl now to do a first flush.

Erhm, the Aquamira product I use is the Water Treatment...

Just curious: what'll you be using the filter bottle for?

-Ed

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:15 am

Oh, well, its a nice easy way of adding water to the mix I would think.

The treatment eh?

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:37 am

not quoting the 20 diff posts, got here late...

many/most bacteria produce catalase to metabolize or actually take advantage of peroxide. not sure how much protection that would provide them in practice though, and the anaerobes likely to be growing in a closed loop don't produce it anyways.

if you end up trying isopropanol, you may as well buy >99% and dilute it, then you know what's in the bottle (and you're not paying extra for water). alcohols only work by dehydrating stuff and denaturing proteins/disrupting membranes, not sure how effective they are at low concentrations, most effective for any alcohol is 70%. like someone said, most tubing is sort of permeable too; without a res, if you use a lot of alcohol in a loop and aren't using something like Tygon, the tubing will start to collapse as the alcohol diffuses through and evaporates. err... preemptive edit, if you're just using it for a flush you can probably use something a lot more effective than 50% isopropanol.

i'd guess that filtered, sterilized and dechlorinated tap water should actually be a decent coolant, not about to test it though. some of the damage seen from using straight distilled water might have been from the water alone, not from a lack of anticorrosives; remember ultrapure water can even dissolve glass and titanium, not that that kind comes off the shelf

.

and finally... imho The Answer in a closed loop is UV light. the products you'd use for tap water are all massive overkill for WC, but the in-line ones made for aquariums seem tailor made it. not sure why they aren't used more commonly, though they are a tiny bit expensive (~$100 + $30-40/year) and can't help flow rates.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:44 pm

Thanks.

I figure that water wetter is toxic, the distilled water is fairly free from bacteria. I will just use 50/50 flush of isopropyl when it comes time. That can kill a massive amount of things, anything it doesnt has a very small statistical chance of winding up in my resserator tower, so I bet it works snazy. I want to look into chemical additive treatments. That aquarmira stuff is buffered I bet for humans, which I am guessing could be food for bacteria, or else just cause fluffy massive of odd precipitate and decomposed whatevers to form in the water (dad the chemist took a wild shot at the idea)