Can I use the same stop bath & fixer for B&W film and paper?

F4U said:

No I pour them back in the bottle. Stop bath will start changing from the yellow to a more brown color when it's getting weak. And fixer will start turning yellowish. Often times fixer may start to take on a "stinky" smell and have silver particles and/or a sludge that comes up from the bottom when you tip the jug. I would say that fixer is most likely to be thrown out before the "recommend limit' is even reached. There used to be an Edwal hypo chek where you drop in a drop and if the fixer is exhausted, that drop will turn to a cloud. Plus 60 years of doing this and you kinda know just from the various clues. Besides, if you are really serious about your film and prints you'd be using a second fresh bath that you'd rotate into first bath and make a new second bath. Plain old Kodak Fixer is the best thing there is.

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MattKing said:

If you spill a drop, the Kodak Indicator Stop bath concentrate will take the colour out of a laminate counter top.
Don't ask me how I know ......

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dcy said:

I think I know the answer to this question, but I wanted to check:

Last time I was doing anything in the darkroom, I was experimenting with my enlarger and making prints. That was 6 months ago. I still have a bottle of stop bath and a bottle of fixer from back then. The fixer is regular Ilford rapid fixer and the stop bath is vinegar + water.

I just shot some rolls of B&W film and I want to develop them. My plan is to:

(1) Use a pH test strip to test that the stop bath is still acidic.
(2) Use a "clip test" to test that the fixer still fixes film in less than (say) 2-4 minutes.
(3) If either solution seems to have debris, I could pass them through a coffee filter.

With those precautions, is there any reason I cannot or should not use those solutions for B&W film development?

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