Water Loop

to be honest that's a pointless setup, you'll not get any benefit from having 2 rads on a CPU only loop.

Just stick with either a black ice GT 240 or the 360 version and you'll be fine.

Also 2 pumps is pointless as well, you'll not get any extra l/ph and the head pressure could be too much for one of them and burn it out.

Comps

Where is this coming from? I have not come across any discussions suggesting that you could "burn out" a pump. Obvious advantage is redundancy. Especially useful if you leave the computer running unattended. While i agree that you would probably see little gain in flow, I can't say the burning out aspect is one I am familiar with. Can you point to some discussions about that?

I'm just working on a simple theory that if one pump pushes through more liquid that the other it could cause it to spin faster and damage the motor in it. I'm not saying it's 100% but just something that occurred to me.

In addition to the "Redundancy", having another pump is kinda pointless, you'd be better off with a flow meter with automatic shutdown function on that one. It'll come in cheaper than another pump

I see. I think if it was really an issue I would have seen it discussed by Martin or Skinee. On the other hand, I have seen dual pump discussions that use different pumps. Not saying you are wrong, I just am not aware of any evidence to support your theory. Note I said am not aware of, not that it doesn't exist.

Redundancy also means your computer still works while you are awaiting the replacement pump and the time to redo the loop. Flow meter doesn't do that for you.

1 pump will work just fine. I've been running 1 MCP655 pump for 16-24 hours straight for 9 months with 2 360 rads and a CPU/GPU (just added a 2nd GPU).

Now, having said that, I will say that I am now considering changing my loop a little, since I've had a spare MCP655 pump just sitting on my shelf, and I'm thinking about getting an EK-D5 Dual Top, which will allow both of my pumps to be mounts in a single loop (they also make an EK-D5 Dual Loop Top if you want to mount 2 pumps and have 2 separate loops).


Having said that, I am a bit confused as to what you want to do with your loop. Are you planning on having an "open loop" and have the water from the small radiator pump out and into the fish tank, and then just submerge a radiator in the fish tank and draw water in from the fish tank and pump it in to the PC to cool things? I personally would NOT recommend that, because you will have issues with biological contaminates entering your radiators and water blocks.

Is it a "closed loop" system and you are just planning to submerge the larger radiator in the fish tank in the hopes of using the fish tank to help cool the radiator? If so, I'm not sure that is going to work all that well. It might, I've just never heard of such a thing.

I have drawn up designs to do something that is "off the wall", where I have an "open loop" system with it's own pump to cool a "closed loop" system which will cool the computer. But that uses a "heat exchanger", not a radiator, to keep the two systems seperate, and each side has its own pump. Koolance HXP-193 Plate Heat Exchanger

Lastly, I hope that in either case, you don't plan on putting actual live fish in that tank. I have a 55 gallon (208L) aquarium with about 30 fish in it, and given the temps that I experience with my water cooling system (about 41C or 105F water temp after about an hour of 100% load from folding), it would kill all the fish in a tank. A fresh water tank temp, for most fish, is between 70F to 78F (21.1C to 25.5C) with some species (Betas for example) able to go upwards of 85F (29.4C). Salt water temps are usually in the 75F to 80F range (23.9C to 26.7C). So dumping that water into the tank, either from an "open loop" system, or placing a radiator in the tank and generating a hot spot, would NOT be a good thing for 99.99% of the fish that are typically used in aquariums.
Edited by 47 Knucklehead - 9/3/12 at 4:33am

Tell me you are aware of the fact that if your coolant goes below the dew point you will have condensation issues and, possibly, water dripping onto your motherboard etc. You do know that, right?