Mercury S8 - Acrylic and LEDs - Build recap

[Bartacus]

Looking good Fuji, glad you solved it!

[xmanrigger]

Nice rig. The cascade effect can be really cool, and I considered it a few years ago.

But it has been suggested by 'experts' that it is undesirable for several reasons. First off, it is noisy. Secondly, air is introduced to circulating loop (and coolant itself), causing noise and reduced cooling efficiency. Thirdly, the dead space above the coolant in reservoir may act as an incubator, increasing/accelerating microbial growth. Yes, we all use some form of bug dope (hopefully), but bottom line is, the potential is there. For these reasons and others, I believe that is why you dont see cascading loops commonplace.

I am no expert, but I have been water cooling for quite some time. In that time, I have a member of several forums that do have experts in PC water cooling as members. Just throwing this out for 'food for thought'.

[fuji]

Thanks for your help and suggestions guys. I'm happy to leave the build as it is for a while.

Nice rig. The cascade effect can be really cool, and I considered it a few years ago.

But it has been suggested by 'experts' that it is undesirable for several reasons. First off, it is noisy. Secondly, air is introduced to circulating loop (and coolant itself), causing noise and reduced cooling efficiency. Thirdly, the dead space above the coolant in reservoir may act as an incubator, increasing/accelerating microbial growth. Yes, we all use some form of bug dope (hopefully), but bottom line is, the potential is there. For these reasons and others, I believe that is why you dont see cascading loops commonplace.

I am no expert, but I have been water cooling for quite some time. In that time, I have a member of several forums that do have experts in PC water cooling as members. Just throwing this out for 'food for thought'.

Thanks for the feedback/warnings, I had thought about what you said, which is something I probably should've done before I built this. But, here we are.

The fountain effect isn't noisy at all. I can't pick out the sounds over the DDC + fans. While the air circulation thing could be a problem, the aqualis 450 pro has a plastic shield which does a pretty good job of preventing the air bubbles from re-entering the loop. The plastic shield is specifically for the fountain effect. If I opted not to use the fountain effect, I would remove the shield and put in a deflector plate (also came with the res). I haven't seen any make it past the shield since bleeding the loop was complete and I haven't heard air bubbles making it through the loop (like you do when bleeding).

I could see this being a problem on reservoirs that weren't specifically made for a fountain effect though and these two points would be very concerning.

As for your last point about the dead space acting as an incubator, I'm honestly not sure if, or how much this is a problem. I'm willing to see how it goes after a year or so, and will pay attention to this. Daz protector should kill anything in there, but I'm willing to see how it goes. I'll keep this in mind though and if I notice growth in there I will run it near full with the same dye/protector to do some science-like stuff.

[Bartacus]

The air doesn't get re-circulated in these things. As long as you have enough liquid in the tube. I've been running mine for years, and any bubbles that appear beneath the waterfall can't make it back into the loop. They float to the surface and pop immediately in the top of the tube. Even with multiple pumps pushing the waterfall, there is never enough suction at the bottom of the tube to pull air bubbles down through the fluid. Plus there's a clear plate near the bottom of the tube that aids in this as well, as you can see in the GIF Fuji made.