Coolant wierdness

[Surfie]

Hi All,

So, as some of you know, I recently started on my first foray into coloured coolant. And i've just noticed something really strange....

The coolant started out a dark red colour (something akin to blood), but over the last week or so, the colour has faded significantly. To the point where it is now a very faint purple (so faint, that it is, in fact, translucent - you can see through it quite easily)).

What could have caused this? Do I need to be concerned about cooling ability of the coolant? Is there an inherent issue I should be looking into?

The cooling parts in question:
XSPC Raystorm CPU block
2 x Alphacool Copper Radiators (1x360x60 and 1x240x60)
1 Raystorm 680 CPU block
XSPC Photon 170 Pump/Res
Primochill LRT Clear tubing
Primochill Liquid Utopia
Primochill Intensifier Red Dye

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Additionally, i've gone back to my spare coolant, and it is the same colour it always was! Something very odd happening here.

 

[SuB]

is the coolant in the sun light?

 

[Surfie]

is the coolant in the sun light?

Negative sir. There is no direct sunlight touching the rig. There is also no indirect sunlight.

There are some LEDs inside the case that never turn off. One of them is white. Could that do it?

 

[SuB]

Don't think so.. any UV lights at all?

 

[Surfie]

Don't think so.. any UV lights at all?

Nope. I'd heard that UV lights and dyed coolant don't play nice, so I never bothered.

 

[SuB]

Hmm.. and the colour hasn't stained anything? no gunk build up anywhere?

 

[Surfie]

Nope. Not as far as I can see anyways. Nothing floating in the res either.

 

[Dragolu]

I think we have gone through this before but that is my exact same experience with primochill dyes (I used blue). I kept adding dye bombs and it would last a few weeks and fade. I tried feser and it lasted maybe a little longer. In the end there was a decent amount of gunk once I took my blocks apart.
Thats what made me decide to use coloured tubing instead.
In my experience it is par de course with dyes.

 

[Surfie]

I think we have gone through this before but that is my exact same experience with primochill dyes (I used blue). I kept adding dye bombs and it would last a few weeks and fade. I tried feser and it lasted maybe a little longer. In the end there was a decent amount of gunk once I took my blocks apart.
Thats what made me decide to use coloured tubing instead.
In my experience it is par de course with dyes.

We may have actually, and if so, I apologise for not taking the advice more seriously. So, what to do now? Flush the loop and start again with good old fashioned distilled water, or do I need to take the loop apart completely and clean blocks and all.

 

[Dragolu]

I didnt mean to sound pissy. I just didnt want to keep pushing my opinions on you if you already knew.
My advise would be that if you can live with the faded color and the temps are OK wait a few months and do a loop overhaul when it is time. It may be a little harder to clean but you save yoursself having to take down the whole loop. Dont add more dye. It will only make things worse. If you can't you may need to do it now. In my experience even with the gunk the temps weren't that much different 2-3 C. It was mostly a cosmetic thing.
If you do I would consider distilled water, coloured tubing and a killcoil.