developer gurus i have a question

i have been using unreplenished seasoned caffenol made with sumatra beans in one form or another
for about 3 years. about once a year i get rid of all my developer and mix fresh, but usually
what i do is what i used to do with dk50 ... i remove about 1/3 of it and mix a fresh L into the old
i never have any trouble and use it for both film and prints and also silver gelatin tintypes ... it works OK no complaints.
a few days ago, after not processing film for a few months ( long summer, too much other stuff to deal with )
i mixed a fresh L and did my usual. ( i always add a shake of ansco 130 stock if this matters ) ...
so my recipe is coffee washing soda vit c and ansco 130 ...
i had what looks like a long mucus blob. i got some of it out a few days ago, but today after processing a few rolls of film
i moved the developer to another container and got the rest of it out, it was pretty gross. a huge almost see through mucus blob.

i got rid of it ( in the trash ) anyone know what this is ?
i usually put a few hundred rolls and a few hundred sheets through the developer before i mix totally fresh, most of the time it is just
that i am paranoid in the summer my developer is going to fail from not being used or from the heat ( never above 68ish in my darkroom )

im not worried about this gross thing ( the rolls i processed today came out fine ) just wanted to know what it was ...

bacterial infection?...oh, no. That would be greenish-yellow.

ectoplasm

Strands of DNA. It's all been well documented . . . see here.

Hahaha. Loving a fee if these replies. On a serious note, have any of your ingredients changed. At all. Even the brand? Something in there is reaction and depositing a solid. If I had to guess it would be the vitamin C or coffee that turned into the 'mucus'

Since bacteria and fungus won't survive Sulfite, I would assume that first all the Sulfite was converted to Sulfate by aerial oxidation, then some germ started eating your dev agents. Glycin, HQ, Metol all yummy!

Since an HQ based developer without Sulfite doesn't work well anyway, at least the germs didn't eat anything of (photographic) value ...

It is a common problem with many chemicals stored for a long time. Extremely common in old selenium toner. I don't store developers so can't answer about its viability, but with my 20+ year old replenished selenium I just filter it through a coffee filter and continue using it with no problem.
If it were to happen with any of my developers,I would discard the entire batch.

Rudeofus said:

Since bacteria and fungus won't survive Sulfite, I would assume that first all the Sulfite was converted to Sulfate by aerial oxidation, then some germ started eating your dev agents. Glycin, HQ, Metol all yummy!

Since an HQ based developer without Sulfite doesn't work well anyway, at least the germs didn't eat anything of (photographic) value ...

Click to expand...

john's brew is Caffenol plus a tiny amount of 130, so there will only be a tiny amount of sulfite present ... which tends to support your explanation of course

However I still firmly believe he needs to call someone ... who ya gonna call?

Probably the same fungus protoplasm that I get in my tea jug if it doesn't get washed enough.

Jim Noel said:

It is a common problem with many chemicals stored for a long time. .

Click to expand...

Would this happen with the ingredients that the OP mentions? The actual stock if I have read his post correctly is/was only a few days old

pentaxuser

Ah I read it that he did his usual replenishment routine - removed a litre of old stuff and added a fresh litre of Caffenol+Ansco, and in that process discovered the hideous ectoplasmic mass

pdeeh said:

Ah I read it that he did his usual replenishment routine - removed a litre of old stuff and added a fresh litre of Caffenol+Ansco, and in that process discovered the hideous ectoplasmic mass

Click to expand...

You may be right, now I re-read it. I had originally thought he had got rid of all of his developer as he said earlier in the post. Sounds as if the gunge was already in the old stuff but wasn't noticed until the new stuff was mixed when it then rose up like the creature from the black lagoon

As he has replenished in this fashion on other occasions( I think:confused it is strange that this phenomenon hasn't manifested itself before.

pentaxuser

thanks for the help id'ing the goop.
pentaxuser, i just replenished it, i had
mixed fresh developer, cleaned out the tupperware bin &c.
maybe 6 months before ...
no ingredients any different than usual
same old ( now older ) sumatran robusta beans double perked
same old washing soda that is slowly hydrating in my darkroom
same old vit c purchased cheap at trader joes ..
and fresh stock ansco 130 mixed maybe 3-4 months ago
(don't remember exactly, just remember the haze of mixing 4-5 gallons of developer
when it arrived )

id throw out the developer if my film didn't process but it seems to be a waste of good caffenol
i just got rid of the blob and if it comes back ill call bill murray or make sure i am not watching a susan serandon movie..

thanks again !
john

All sorts of crud will grow in stale coffee. That the solution is alkaline makes it all the more attractive to various micro-organisms. Several on APUG have suggested adding a small amount of classic Listerine to solutions that are prone to bacterial growth. By classic I mean the brown nasty tasting stuff. It contains thymol which inhibits bacterial growth.

Gerald C Koch said:

All sorts of crud will grow in stale coffee. That the solution is alkaline makes it all the more attractive to various micro-organisms. Several on APUG have suggested adding a small amount of classic Listerine to solutions that are prone to bacterial growth. By classic I mean the brown nasty tasting stuff. It contains thymol which inhibits bacterial growth.

Click to expand...

gerald,
if i add listerine will it affect my developer or be invisible so to speak except for the bacteria growth?

thanks!
john

I've been using the listerine in my print developer and I haven't noticed any problems.

jnanian said:

gerald,
if i add listerine will it affect my developer or be invisible so to speak except for the bacteria growth?

thanks!
john

Click to expand...

There would be nothing in the Listerine that should have any effect on photographic material.. Its addition is particularly useful for those that reuse a washing aid.

Listerine is also good at preserving the "tooth" or should that be "teeth" in a print that people speak about when hand-colouring, isn't it or am I confused?

pentaxuser