OK, there are weird and beautiful crystals that have formed at the bottom of my Dektol stock solution. Do I need to worry about them? Is there anything that I can do about it or do I have to chuck the solution?
My darkroom is in the basement (upstate NY) and I often get these crytals this time of year. I re-heat my dev in an old microwave before use (and periodically during a printing session) and it melts the crytals back into solution. You'll be fine if you do this. Old microwaves go cheap at garage sales.
FWIW, they're sodium sulfite which, at room temperature, has a solubility of a little over 200 g/L, but that solubility drops rapidly with temperature. The only ill effect of pouring off the developer and leaving the crystals when you dilute for use would be slightly shortening the tray life of the working solution. If you don't leave the developer in the trays for a long time (say, between sessions) it shouldn't matter.
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