Food Coloring completely safe for WC?

[Nubius]

Yeah now THIS is probably a really dumbassed question, BUT, is generic food coloring aright for a WC setup?

I was figuring 90% distilled water with 10% zerex and some red food coloring........would the zerex like.....'eat' away the food coloring, or would it just in general not be a good thing to add to a WC setup or something like that? :stick:

[Brandon_Tyler]

I used blue food colouring back in the day and it didnt see to have any adverse effects on my clearflex or pumps. Just dont try to use UV dye with it, I had horrible results.

-Brandon

Heck as an alternative Dtek (http://www.dtekcustoms.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=45) sells a product thats both visable blue and UV that you just add to your loop.

[specialblend218]

Nubius, I have 10 bottles of Dye-lite if you want to go UV green.

[sparky1_2007]

acctually, the food coloring will gunk up in the pump.....

[Nubius]

the food coloring will gunk up in the pump..... bah that's mainly what I wanted to know, but I figured the stuff would be thin, I mean it is safe to eat and whatnot, so I figured it wouldn't be anything that would do such a thing.

Nubius, I have 10 bottles of Dye-lite if you want to go UV green. I dont think I'll have any UV lights in my case although I realize you'd still be able to see it green.....I was really wantin BLOOD RED lol but I don't think that'll be possible :(

That Dtek has a UV FIRE RED though, that might look perty cool.....just wonder how it'll look if it's not under UV lights...I wanted a fairly dark red lol, but yeah I guess that's not realistic considering I have to have mainly the distilled water and zerex, too much color would kill performance more than likely

[Necromonger]

Nubius,


Water wetter actually stains the tygon tubing just slightly pink, so I would imagine that some dyes would do the same thing, Antifreeze or Ethylene Glycol is acutely clear and the manufacture adds the dye to make it what ever color they want, I haven’t noticed any greenish stains on my tubing as of yet, and I don’t really know what food coloring will do to your system, it might slightly stain the tubing too and or effect the thermal properties of heat transfer. I would wait for the Guru of water-cooling, Maxx, to get a definitive answer on that question.

[Nubius]

yeah I thought he might have answered by now but I figured it's either just a ridiculous question or he's tired of my simplistic questions lol....can't blame him :p

I've heard quite a few horror stories with water wetter though

[MaxxxRacer]

ive heard mixed thoughts and trials on this. some ppl run without issues. others i have heard had gunk in their blocks and pumps from it.. one way to find out.. the gunk wont hurt anything im sure but it will lower ur flow a wee bit.

[Nubius]

I asked someone over at pimprig who had a pretty dang red color in her tubes, so I'll let you guys know what mixture she said she used :D

I was considering just getting some of that Fire red dye from dtek

[Butcher_]

Food colouring sounds like a bad idea to me - just because it's safe to eat doesn't mean you should stick it in your loop. Syrup is safe to eat but would royally :banana::banana::banana::banana: up a cooling loop. :p

[Nubius]

Syrup is safe to eat but would royally up a cooling loop. :p lol yeah that's comparing apples and oranges there. The viscocity of food coloring over syrup would be insanely different.

In all essence it should simply be a dye and nothing more

[Butcher_]

Dyes aren't exactly good for cooling systems though. You should be more worried about it precipitating than the viscosity anyway.

[Nubius]

http://www.dtekcustoms.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=47

Isn't that just a dye? Doesn't water wetter stain the system too? I know technically adding dye can stain tubing and knock cooling a little, but probably 1C at most......a UV reactive dye seems like it'd have harsher things in it than food coloring, but the basic conclusion I've come to is, if you're gonna use a dye, use one made for WC =/

[Tanktanium]

I asked someone over at pimprig who had a pretty dang red color in her tubes, so I'll let you guys know what mixture she said she used :D

I was considering just getting some of that Fire red dye from dtek

Don't. I got some, and it's terrible. I even tested it in a glass jar with distilled water and a UV light, and it barely glows pale orange. Not even close to what is in the pic at dtek. The voyeurmods stuff is even worse, doesn't show up at all. I suppose i just have bad luck at getting dyes :(

[Nubius]

Bah! Well that sucks, gotta wait and see what this girl put in hers because it looks pretty damn red. It's a 'Trigun' case lol, so it's all red and black basically like I wanted mine to be.

I got a nice flashy red military switch for resetting my CMOS haha, it'll go perfect if I could get a nice red colored water goin on

[Butcher_]

Food colours have to be edible which often means they will degrade over time. You're better off with a UV dye which has harsher chemicals as it's less likely to degrade or cause things to grow.

[Nubius]

well if there was zerex or anti algae, I doubt things would grow in it just because of that, BUUUUT i'd think the zerex would simply eat away the food coloring completely and maybe even cause weird things to happen in the loop

[Nubius]

Aright that girl at pimprig replied back to me. She said she used distilled water, zerex, and that Fire Red UV Dye tank said he had bad luck with but she obviously had perfect results. Pics can be seen here:

http://forums.pimprig.com/showthread.php?t=21026&page=29&pp=20

here

http://forums.pimprig.com/showthread.php?t=21026&page=22&pp=20

and here

http://forums.pimprig.com/showthread.php?t=21026&page=20&pp=20

She said just keep adding a little with a spoon until you get the color you desired :D So I probably will atleast try it to see how the outcome is

[Tanktanium]

Ohhh, jessalba's case. I know her from the gruntville forums. Well, I've still got a lot of dye left, but I didn't seem to have a whole lot of luck with it. The actual fluid itself is a dark red, but under UV it didn't seem to glow very much. I guess I'll try again...

[Nubius]

Well I really don't need it to glow under UV, I doubt I'll even wind up putting UV in there, I was just wanting a bloodish red color in the tubes as is, not really to glow :D

[Tanktanium]

With my old setup, I used both UV dye and red food coloring and it turned out like this...

http://www.pypehosting.net/files/sideoffflash.jpg

But it glowed like this under UV...

http://www.pypehosting.net/files/darkfrontright.jpg

So whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

After I drained the system, it turns out the tubing had been stained pink as well :/

[Nubius]

Ahh man that red without the UV looks freakin sweet, I think that's what I'd like to go for.

Screw UV's :p

obviously food coloring worked aright for you.......how long did you have it in the system though?

[Tanktanium]

I'd say about two months. I removed the tubing and it was all stained pink, though I did have Water Wetter in there, I don't think I'm going to use Water Wetter this time.

[Nubius]

Yeah I've kind of heard iffy reports about water wetter. I think I'll be doing what jessalba suggested and just distilled with zerex and that fire red dye......that thing says a little goes a long way so I suppose I'll just keep adding it until it's red enough for me :D

The reason I asked for how long you had it in there was to see if it was in there long enough to determine if food coloring was safe or not

[ferrari_freak]

omg! tanktanium, that is a BEAUTIFUL case! :slobber: but still, i dont really think food colouring is that good of a choice... don't have any experience with it since i dont got liquid cooling but from the sound of it it looks like it'll probably stain ur system.

[Nubius]

yeah, staining the system isn't really bad though unless you're looking to use different colors, but I mean......I really wouldn't care if my tubing got stained.

From what I've read water wetter and that fire red dye stain your system so I doubt food coloring staining it would be any worse unless like I said it caused some other weird problems

[ferrari_freak]

true

[Tanktanium]

Well, after testing it in a clear plastic bottle, it turns out that you need to use a LOT of it in order to be able for it to show up well. After all, I couldn't tell what it looked like inside the tubing because of the staining :D. I put it in with about 12oz of water and just kept adding until it looked suitably red. After turning on UV cathodes, it did glow orange,a nd a lot better than last time. Still not the bloodred I was hoping for, however :(

[Nubius]

Still not the bloodred I was hoping for, however Bloodred is exactly what I want muahahahahah....Buuuut like I said I don't think I'll be adding UV lights so I think I will just wind up going with that dye :D