print washers?

[Duolab123]

I, too, used softened water for mixing all my photo chemicals except for the final rinse in wetting agent, which I mixed with distilled water, and had fine results. Without the final (rather long) treatment in the distilled water/wetting agent, salt crystals would form on the surface of the negatives when drying. Prints were alright in this regard as long as I squeegeed the excess water from them. All that was years ago when I lived in San Antonio, which draws its water from wells drilled in the limestone bedrock; close to the hardest tap water on earth I would imagine.

I don't see why the sodium content of softened water would negatively affect developer except possibly to alter the developing time a tiny, tiny bit. I certainly had no problem with HC-110 and D-76 then. For stop and fix, the sodium should do just about nothing...

For negative and print washing, the wash times may be a bit longer with softened water, but again, only by a negligible amount.

Best,

Doremus

It's not sodium it's the sodium carbonate. Bigger cities have much better water treatment facilities. In Iowa water quality varies dramatically from town to town. Depends on how much the water is "purified "

[interneg]

Is that a result of peat in the water ? Staining ?

No, it's because of the low levels of calcium carbonate, magnesium etc in the water.

With all the lovely granite and the like in Scotland it's probably low in minerals.

The granite's largely only in one corner of the country (watch out for the radon gas) but elsewhere there's a lot of sandstone etc - our tap water in Glasgow comes from Loch Katrine.

[Duolab123]

No, it's because of the low levels of calcium carbonate, magnesium etc in the water.



The granite's largely only in one corner of the country (watch out for the radon gas) but elsewhere there's a lot of sandstone etc - our tap water in Glasgow comes from Loch Katrine.

We have very high levels of radon in the northeast corner of the state of Iowa. First Europeans were attracted to the area to mine Lead. When Uranium decays you get Lead and Radon, or so I've been told.