Softened water

I'd say it's probably good for the final rinse, yep.

I know back in the day, when my mate owned a minilab setup, the Agfa engineers came out to commision the machine, and as part of the testing, they checked the water quality of the supply the machine was running on. Being in a soft(ish) water area anyway, it wasn't a problem, but they said that in hard water areas they recommended running the machine on distilled water.

How hard is my water supply
 
Are there not increased dissolved salts in the output of a domestic water softener? Swapping one precipitate for another. Softened hard water is different to naturally soft water.

Cheaper than distilled water would be to run a small RO or RO/DI unit. The waste from which can be used on the garden or for flushing the loo, etc.
 
Turns out the main water taps are all softened and the little extra tap on the sink is filtered water. Probably best to use filtered water for the main wash and then bosh it into some softened water at the end do you think?

Cheers
 
I always use distilled water for the dev, tap water for the stop, fix and wash and distilled water for the final rinse with a bit of wetting agent added and haven't had any drying marks for years.
 
To be honest I used tap water for everything the last few times and have never had a drying mark. However I just found out that the house has three types of water, hard, softened and purified/filtered.

I think I'll use hard water for the 10 min rinse and then use purified water for the final rinse? It probably won't make that much difference to be honest but would like to hear what others would do given this multitude of water options!

ped
 
I just use the water as it comes from the tap, with the recommended amount of Ilfotol wetting agent in the final rinse for B&W - colour has it's own Stabiliser which should be the final thing that touches the wet film. Never have any problems with drying marks, though i'm lucky enough to be in a soft water area.

I think in your situation ped, I'd probably just use whatever came out of the tap for all but the final rinse :shrug:
 
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