Flouride: Threat or Menace?

[Dug]

I mix my chems with distilled water to reduce variations in the mixtures. I can get some clearance "nursery water" which is distilled water with flouride added. I know that flouride is a communist conspiracy meant to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids, but how does it affect developer, etc?

Am I unnecessarily introducing a variable to save a couple bucks?

[Ole]

Am I unnecessarily introducing a variable to save a couple bucks?

Yes.

When that is said, I think fluoride in itself is unlikely to affect the developer. But it is usually added as sodium monofluorophosphate, so that's what you're dealing with. The phosphate will have a slight buffering effect, which might have an effect on developers.

[George Papantoniou]

But then, you won't have to worry about your negative's teeth getting rotten and falling off... :-(

On a more serious tone now, how about leaving the water in an open container for a day or two. Will then the fluoride evaporate (I once heard that the chloride in the water evaporates after a while, maybe it's true for fluoride too...)

[chuck94022]

Will then the fluoride evaporate?

Yes, but it will leave behind the nano-recorders and nano-trackers used by the NSA to spy on us all. They should have no effect on development, as long as you stir well to keep them suspended.

Note to Sean, the government will be contacting you to remove this post forthwith...

[Nick Zentena]

Kodak on thier website has or had a document that described how pure the water needed to be. It certainly wasn't requiring distilled water. I use distilled water because I like the chemicals to keep more then I'm worried about anything else. If I was a heavy user that used up his solutions every day or two then I might not use distilled.

[bobfowler]

I mix my chems with distilled water to reduce variations in the mixtures. I can get some clearance "nursery water" which is distilled water with flouride added. I know that flouride is a communist conspiracy meant to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids, but how does it affect developer, etc?

Am I unnecessarily introducing a variable to save a couple bucks?

Nope, I'm not gonna do it... no movie quotes from "Dr. Strangelove" from me... no sir, not gonna start talking about "precious bodily fluids"...

must... resist...temptation...

Whew! I'm feeling better now.

[Kirk Keyes]

O
POE
E

Now where's the CRM-114?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

It's chlorine, a gas, that can be removed somewhat from water by allowing the water to sit, not chloride. And this will not work with flouride either.

I agree with Ole that it is not a concern. The flouride is at such a low level (parts per million) that it should not have any measureable affect.

[John Cook]

The main characteristic to look for in lab water is consistency. You will have no problems if the water with which you make your development run is EXACTLY the same as the water you used to do your initial testing. Almost no matter what kind of crud it contains.

What screws things up is water which is unpredictably changing in some way: alkalinity, iron content, or of course temperature.

Here in New England, the autumn leaves fall into the reservoir and decompose. Then the winter road salt washes into it. Then one week the boys at the purification plant get a little carried away with the chlorine. The next week, the city chemist is on vacation and nothing gets added.

Thus the need for some sort of bottled water...

[bobfowler]

Here in New England, the autumn leaves fall into the reservoir and decompose. Then the winter road salt washes into it. Then one week the boys at the purification plant get a little carried away with the chlorine. The next week, the city chemist is on vacation and nothing gets added.

Speaking of New England water supplies...

The town where my Mom lives (Billerica, Massachusetts), uses the Concord river as the local water supply. Decomposing leaves are the least of their problem. More than once they've had a dead cow clog up the intake to the "purification" plant!

All the more reason to have some bourbon with that water...