distilled or tap water for stop bath, fixer, etc?

PhilBurton · Aug 24, 2020

I plan to use distilled water to dilute XTol 1:1 for single-use when I do my "Big Development" project. Is distilled water better or necessary for the stop bath and the rest of the chemistry?

jimjm · Aug 25, 2020

Unless your tap water has a significant amount of sediment or minerals, you should be good to use it for all steps except the final rinse in wetting agent.
I use distilled water to mix Photo-flo, dunk the film in it for about a minute, then hang to dry without squeegee or wiping it. Never had any problem with water spots or deposits on the film.

Agulliver · Aug 25, 2020

The manufacturers of photo chemicals aimed at amateur users usually say that tap water is fine. They're designed for tap water. I've been home developing films for over 35 years and have never bothered with distilled or deionised water at any point. For the record I live in a hard water area.

AgX · Aug 25, 2020

Even when our water was very hard, I had no staining problem with the final rinse. But I not only used a wetting agent, but also squeeged the films (by hand), something what quite some fellows here would never do.

One should use a particle filter on the mains water inlcome, then may remain particles (typical carbonates) that originate frome the tube surfaces in the house itself which got washed off. Buit I found them big enough to be held by the sieves at the tap. Smaller particle I never saw in the water.

Another issue might by metal ions. I assume to have got some copper ions, to no ill effect as far I could see though.

guangong · Aug 25, 2020

I use water from faucet, whether well water or city water, except for movie film developers.

Alan9940 · Aug 25, 2020

Not to go against the pack here, but I use RO water for all my working solutions, distilled water when mixing stock solutions (primarily developers), and distilled water with Photo Flo for the final rinse. I don't squeegee any format film and have never had drying marks/spots.

voceumana · Aug 25, 2020

If you get water from a local authority (city, county, or water district) they can provide you a water report that will tell you such things as their average pH, sediment, and usual chemical analysis. It's worth getting the report and finding out. In the USA normal tap water is OK, but if you consider things like the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, it is well worth checking. There, a change in water source changed the pH significantly and thus, lots of dissolved chemicals (from the lead pipes uses) into the water supply.

Pentode · Aug 25, 2020

jimjm said:
Unless your tap water has a significant amount of sediment or minerals, you should be good to use it for all steps except the final rinse in wetting agent.

This is my approach as well. I always use distilled water for the Photo Flo but everything else is tap water, including the developer.

I have read that Xtol can be fussy about tap water and that it's better to mix that particular developer with distilled or filtered water but I don't have personal experience that suggests that. The few times I've used Xtol I used tap water with no ill effects but it's not my go-to developer so I might not have noticed if it was performing differently than intended.

distilled or tap water for stop bath, fixer, etc?

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