Aquatic Ambiance - Custom loop in CaseLabs Mercury S3

I received two packages the other day! I wonder what could be inside

Corsair Dominator memory modules! "Unfortunally" I have to send these back as I've made a huge change in the build. I will use my current 32GB of DDR4 together with EK's RAM modules and I will actually cool those as well.

And my Z270i monoblock for my Z270i Gaming motherboard. This is gonna be interesting

I mean these look GREAT! Too bad I'm not gonna use them.

The monoblock was a lot heavier than I expected it to be! It reeks of quality and feels amazing in hands. Can't wait to slap this on my motherboard.

This is the motherboard which I've unboxed a few days ago.

The lot. Again - the Dominator memory modules are not going to be used in this build any more.

Ok so I actually have some heavy duty work coming up. I need to drain and disassemble Emerald Moon and strip the CPU, RAM and GPU. I have a special job for the NCASE M1 Then comes testing out the components for the new builds. I copefully get the case tomorrow, if not it's coming next week. I'm super stoked about the case. Extremely beautiful but very expensive. Please leave your thought and critique around the build log as it grows

Ok so I've actually gone ahead drained my old loop Emerald Moon as I will use a few of the parts in my new build. I had to borrow a few pictures from my snapchat story here if you're wondering...

This is the whole PC in parts. Pretty amazing that I could fit all this into the M1. If everything goes as planned I'l revive my new case from CaseLabs today.

This is a good day!! My Mercury S3 case from CaseLabs is finally here!

I can't even believe how many parts that came with this!

Okay so let's start the assembly! There's a lot going on here and but the manual is very clear and even has color images of the build steps.

This is going great actually! What amazing build quality, I can't even describe the feeling. Very thick aluminium and high quality paint job.

The case is complete! It took me about 30 minutes to finish the build. Extremely easy steps to follow and an overall fun build! 10/10

The Mercury S3 is actually very small, about the size of a Bit Fenix Prodigy actually. But next to the Ncase M1 it looks huge!

Ok so it's time to switch motherboard and try the components out.

Everything is mounted including my 1TB NVME M.2 SSD.

And everything boots up just fine

I can't even tell you how good it feels to see the motherboard automatically recognize the SSD, I have had SO much problem with the Z170i.

I made an order a few days ago on fittings. I thought some of you might be interested in my selection

Alright that's it for now. Hopefully I receive my RAM block tomorrow, which means I can actually go ahead and install the motherboard with component in the case! Please feel free to leave a comment or critique along the way!

Today I'm switching the pre installed heatsinks on the motherboard with my new EKWB monoblock.

No problems so far! Adding new thermal pads to a few components.

The new monoblock is installed! It's beautiful!

So this is what it looks like installed in the case on the motherboard.

I installed a random EKWB SE240 radiator with some random fans in the roof just to see how it looks and to get a perspective on how a 280mm would have looked.

Looks great to me. I'm still not sure on what fans to use but I'm thinking white ones.

So this is the day! I finally received all of my fittings I ordered. Also some temperature sensors, and what I thought was a drain valve, they've sent the wrong item so I instead received a filter lol. Thanks I guess.

Here's a few of the fittings. Everyone's in excellent condition and they are very shiny!! Can't wait to cram a few of these inside the S3.

I'll post more pictures as soon as I get them installed. I'm still waiting for my radiators which is a pain.

Things have been slow but steady for a couple of weeks here, but I'm not on a time schedule and I like to work on things in my own pace. That said things are going great! I've experimented a lot with different kinds of pipe routes but I've come to the conclusion that I can not place a proper route without having all components where they should be. I have some difficult tasks to attend to such as routing a small run between the 280, and 240mm rad. It's very tight but should be manageable. Nothing seems impossible anymore having Emerald Moon as a first WC project lol.

I'm currently on the hunt for a pump/reservoar combo unit and I need some help with that. I've spent countless of hours looking at fans now, and I just can't decide which ones to get, but I have to make a decision and I think I want pick the ones I'm gonna use today. I'm leaning towards these ones: Cooler Master MasterFan Pro 120 AP PWM and Cooler Master MasterFan Pro 140 AP PWM . I also have to pick a PSU. Currently looking for low pinout /crossed-cables PSUs which are pretty rare.

A bit late, but here are the radiators. They look stunning despite a small dent on the fins on the 280mm radiator. Wont be seen anyway so.

This is the current situation. I've test fitted some old PETG pipes just to get a hum of what route to go. The case looks absolutly fantastic with the components installed, can't wait to get a reservoar and pump in there and some fans!

More updates will be arriving soon! I'll probably order the fans today

edit: bonus image. I came up with this nifty idea to measure out my reservoar / pump combo Helped me a lot!

Today I got a huge delivery of stuff I've been waiting for. Not only did I receive my these awesome fans I've picked out.

I also got this huge delivery of Bitspower stuff from the Netherlands!

Look at all this stuff! The compete reservoir and pump combination unit from Bitspower.

Had to disassemble the Laing DDC Pump for this to fit. A bit nerve wrecking but I believe i did a good job!

Ok time to put these things together. I'm using the bitspower Magic Block with a Bitspower pump house/ heat sink.

And here it is! The complete pump and reservoar. Looks very clean to me! Might not use the top inlet, more about that later.

These Bitspower brackets for mounting the reservoar to a radiator costs more than you would think but are necessary for this installation!

I have turned them upside down to hide the (cough - hideous) Bitspower logo, this way I get a more clean look as well

Brackets and reservoar clamps are installed. No hickups yet, everything fits and everything seems to be doing what I want. Strange.

It looks incredibly good so far.

Aw yiss look at these fans!! So happy I bought static non-LED/RGB fans for this. Extremely clean and industrial looking.

These are old used pipes which are just placeholders until I've routed a loop

I'm fairly happy with this solution right here. A very tight fit made it impossible to route the outgoing radiator pipe any where but behind the res and made visible from the front. This ended with this strange looking but still awesome solution. It's a bit wonky to work with these X-Flow radiators but wow they look so fucking good. Note that I've used black fittings here to make this exact turn between radiators a bit more invisible against the more visible shiny parts of the loop.

Ok time to leave this for now. I'm very happy with how this is turning out. I still have a power supply to buy. The route planning is extremely important to me as many of you who followed my Emerald Moon project know of. I have already solved several solutions for the routing but I want it to be perfect. I hope you like everything so far! I'm sure this is going to be something special!

Today I decided to switch things up with a cooler exchange on my 1080Ti. My EKWB GPU Block and Nickel backplate will fit my theme perfectly.

For some stupid reason Nvidia choose to fasten their backplates and coolers on their founder edition cards with 4mm hex bolts. By pure luck I found a tool to help me out. Even the manual told me i could use pliers but i had to be careful LOL

After releasing the last screws I noticed how thin this card really is. It's incredible. Single slot looks really good.

Alright time to clean this baby up and get that block installed.

Alright one side complete. Looks amazing so far!

I'm in love.

More coming soon! I've finally found a PSU and also a few other fittings I've been waiting for. Things are looking good so far!