Brown floaty things in my Ilford developer

[mooseontheloose]

Alright, so I just received my 5L bottle of Ilford PQ Universal developer and when I opened it up I noticed that there were brown floaty things inside it. Kind of stringy, about 1-2 cm in length, suspended in the liquid from top to bottom. Is this normal? Is it some kind of precipitate? When I mixed it I diluted in warm-hot water and it all disappeared and it doesn't seem to have any negative effect on my print development, but I'm curious as to what it may be and what's causing it.

 

[Ian Grant]

Not at all normal, I've used many hundreds of 5 litre containers of PQ Universal and it's always been clear, with nothing like that in it. It may have been badly stored at your suppliers. You should take it back.

Ian

 

[Harrigan]

It is common with shit developers to have brown floaters.

Alright calm down Ilford heads, I’m just joking around.

Seriously it’s probably partially oxidized and should be rejected, unless you plan to use it right away.

 

[mooseontheloose]

LOL!! ;-)

I knew something must be up. Luckily (or not) I'll be heading to Paris this weekend so I can exchange it at Prophot when I'm there. However, the thought of lugging around a 5L bottle there and back, when I had to pay for it to be shipped here in the first place, is ridiculous. Well, I guess that's better than wondering about the quality of my developer over the ensuing months.

What would cause it to oxidize? Storage too warm or too cold? Developer too old? The seal was intact when I opened it. Just seems a little strange.

 

[Lowell Huff]

" Brown Floaty" things in developer are not from oxidation, but usually some impurity in the raw materials. They are usually too small for the filters in manufacturing and recombine in solution later. As stated, at dilution they go away and do not affect the working strength developer. It is just a fact of life, today, when the source of raw materials is not any cleaner. This happens more or less with each supply of certain raw materials purchased.

 

[Sanjay Sen]

I had the same "brown floaty things" appear in a 5L bottle of Ilford Multigrade developer, within a month of opening the bottle. This was the first bottle of developer that I'd ever used, so I'd assumed that I'd done something wrong...

 

[Steve Roberts]

I had the same "brown floaty things" appear in a 5L bottle of Ilford Multigrade developer, within a month of opening the bottle. This was the first bottle of developer that I'd ever used, so I'd assumed that I'd done something wrong...

I opened a new bottle of Ilford Multigrade developer two weeks ago that had small, brown stringy bits in suspension. If they hadn't been in a strong chemical solution, I'd have taken them to be some kind of fungal growth. They seemed to disappear when I diluted it and the results were fine (OK, as well as can be expected with my techniques!) so I didn't worry about it.

Steve

 

[Sanjay Sen]

Oh yes, I should have mentioned that I've used the Multigrade developer with the "brown floaty things" later on and didn't notice any difference / deterioration in quality - at least as far as I could tell.

 

[jeroldharter]

"Brown floaty things in my Ilford developer"

I assume you are not developing in a toilet in a bathroom/darkroom?