Must I use distilled water and where can I get it?

[MagR]

Hi
I'm building my first watercooling loop and need help with coolant. From all the research I've done the view is to use water not the proprietary coolant mixes from Phobya etc which cost a bomb and glow in the dark.
The problem I'm finding is that some say only use distilled (plus PT Nuke) whereas others say de-ionised (plus PT Nuke) is fine. I can find de-ionised no problem locally but can't find distilled. On the internet distilled is very expensive due to shipping.
Has anyone used de-ionised long term with no ill effects or will this be courting disaster? I plan to drain my loop fairly regularly for the first couple of years anyway.
Thanks in advance
Mag

 

[Big B]

Where do you live?
Around here any decently sized grocery store sells a gallon for less than $1 USD...at least for the store brand.
I believe distilled has more impurities removed than with your standard spring water. Some of these can corrode or other wise slowly damage the watercooling system including the pump...which a broken pump would be bad news.

I haven't seen de-ionized water around here, but if the end result removes microscopic impurities, then it should be fine. The method isn't as important if it gets out those impurities.

 

[MagR]

Where do you live?
Around here any decently sized grocery store sells a gallon for less than $1 USD...at least for the store brand.
I believe distilled has more impurities removed than with your standard spring water. Some of these can corrode or other wise slowly damage the watercooling system including the pump...which a broken pump would be bad news.

I haven't seen de-ionized water around here, but if the end result removes microscopic impurities, then it should be fine. The method isn't as important if it gets out those impurities.

Thanks for your reply. I'm in the UK and distilled seems very difficult to get hold of. Some other enthusiasts have now advised me to get de-ionised which is common here. Apparently it has all the minerals removed but not all the microbes that distilled also removes. However I have been told that using a decent biocide such as PT Nuke overcomes this problem so this is what I will do.

Regards Mag