D76 Issue

[Kevin Crisp]

I’ve been mixing this stuff since, oh, 1970, But I just moved to a different area and mixed up a batch. Each 16 oz bottle I stored it in has a precipitate in it, looks like a fuzzy white yarn in the bottom. If you stir it up, you get tiny shiny translucent flakes floating around. They will clog my filter funnel.

What gives? Is it usable? Bad water for this?

Thanks. I’m about to develop a test sheet which will answer the second question.

[Sal Santamaura]

I've no idea, but I mix XTOL (from my stash of Champion-manufactured powders) using actual distilled water, i.e. the bottle says "prepared by steam distillation," and get the same white filamentary precipitate at the bottom of glass storage bottles. White coffee filters takes it out, and I've discerned no negative effects on developer performance.

[Kevin Crisp]

I just souped a test negative. After it clogged the filter funnel, I dumped the little flakes into the tray. The negative looks fine.

[LabRat]

I vote for impurities in the water... "Yarn" would mean there are center points for crystallization...

It's like in school science fair where you would mix salt into solution almost to saturation
in a jar and wait a long time for it to start looking like a crystal cave... Sometimes it did nothing for weeks, but the trick was to sprinkle some "impurities" in to provide a growth center (like metal dust etc)...

Didn't you move recently to places beyond??? Do you well water for mixing??? There might be a new element introduced that can probably be removed by a RO filter unit, or use bottled water for mixing...

D76 is a high sulfite per liter developer (also D23) stock, so maybe by further dilution it will be minimized...

Steve K

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I had something similar years ago with D76, white flakes which I thought might have been some sort of calcium salt. Since then I have used distilled water for the initial mix, and tap water for the dilution, and have never seen it again.

[Drew Wiley]

How clean were your bottles inside to begin with, when you poured your mix in?

[Kevin Crisp]

Clean dry glass bottles previously used for d76. I just developed 2 more non-test negatives and they look fine too. I’ll try distilled water next time.