Why do you recommend using distilled water without additives?

Question

Hi,

In several of the questions on your site, I have seen your staff instructing people to use distilled water without any additives as their coolant. While distilled water may seem like a "safe" choice of coolant (humans can drink it, it must be fine) this is simply not the case when considering a watercooling system. Distilled water without any corrosion inhibitor additives will rapidly degrade metals, especially in mixed metal systems, and it will very easily harbor all kinds of bacterial growth if no biocidal agent is added. I think you are misleading a lot of your customers who are new to watercooling, and potentially causing them to need to replace their entire water loop down the line.

Answer 1

As a beginner/first timer, I'm really struggling with this as well. Sounds like the plain distilled water might be "safest", but causes constant maintenance. Others have said no issues with a EKWB or Corsair premix coolant, so I'm at a loss of what to do, not sure if there stance is a CYA type of thing, or it will really destroy my system using a premix. Have you used a premix with a bitspower config?

Thanks,

Answer 2

Dear Customer,

Thanks for your response.
We don't advise you to add any additives because of we are not sure the component of the additives. Whether it will make the water has any electrode reaction with the mixed metal or not. And to make the metal peeling off and block the loop or not. Mostly, the algae will grow easily in the warm water and under the light. Adding the filter to the loop, making the temp of water as down as you can, reducing the light and replacing the water in a few months can avoid and reduce the algae growth.

Answer 3

@cricenog while bitspower has their reasons (see above) I personally have always used premix/ concentrates from EKWB. These feature anticorrosion compounds as well as biocidal agents. While I certainly cannot comment on the universal compatibility of bitspower equipment, for me personally it has been 100% compatible. I think the biggest issues people run into come from unknowingly mixing metals, not properly cleaning radiators (THIS IS HUGE), and generally not keeping the system sterile and well maintained. My second time filling my loop I did not adequately clean my distro plate and as a result, even with premix, I ended up with something growing in there after a few weeks.

TL;DR do your homework and really understand what is going on in these systems to cause the types of problems people complain about online. Don't just take a reddit strangers (or my own) advice as fact. Happy water cooling!

Answer 4

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Answer 5

Agreed, I was also concerned about clean drinking water issue so I bought Pur water filtration system its cheap to buy thank to pur coupons, take less space then other filters & do a really good job plus its certified by iso and eu.

Answer 6

Unfortunately, the Google search results for distilled water throw up all the unedited junk cookie copy from unknown new age sources that do without upvotes. Good job Mercola (who pretends to be a doctor and claims that cooking rice is harmful because he doesn't understand non-ionizing radiation of global ghost writers).