Quick question on fixing

Should I rinse between stop-bath and fixing?
I've only done a few rolls so far and I've been dumping the fixer in straight after pouring out the Stop-bath. I ask because I've just started reusing my Rapid-fixer and having used one liter of fixer to do two 120 rolls I find the fixer is starting to turn greenish.
Is this ok?

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JammyB said:

Should I rinse between stop-bath and fixing?
I've only done a few rolls so far and I've been dumping the fixer in straight after pouring out the Stop-bath. I ask because I've just started reusing my Rapid-fixer and having used one liter of fixer to do two 120 rolls I find the fixer is starting to turn greenish.
Is this ok?

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No, there s no need to do that,but, consider two-bath fixingto make sure the last fix is always fresh fix.

A very good question, one that I also used to wonder about. The advice you got is correct, it's perfectly OK to pour the fixer in right after the stop bath, and it's also OK to pour the spent fixer back into your big bottle, as most people do. My fixer (Kodak Rapid) lasts longer than I had figured that it would. It pays to do a simple clip test if you have any question on that.

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/fixer exhaustion.html

The question is good, but the thread title could be "fixed".

Something like: "Should their be a rinse between stop bath and fix?"

momus said:

A very good question, one that I also used to wonder about. The advice you got is correct, it's perfectly OK to pour the fixer in right after the stop bath, and it's also OK to pour the spent fixer back into your big bottle, as most people do. My fixer (Kodak Rapid) lasts longer than I had figured that it would. It pays to do a simple clip test if you have any question on that.

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/fixer exhaustion.html

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link Momus. I'll put that in to practice.

What they all said, you can pour the fixer in after the stop bath has been emptied.

As an aside, stop bath stops development because it's acidic. Rapid fixer is also quite acidic and will also stop development very rapidly, so why bother with a stop bath?

IMHO the reason is to preserve your fixer from carryover of alkaline crap from the developer. The stop bath is not just stopping the development, it's a matter of dropping the pH of all the stuff soaked into the emulsion so as to not stress the buffering agents in the fixer. This is not so important with film (a water stop bath is fine there, it just washes the developer off) but is very important with FB paper.

If you develop some FB paper, it will soak up a huge quantity of developer like a sponge and then if you dump it in your fixer, it is like chucking 50mL of developer into the fix. The fix will survive that once or twice but not in the long term, and you will not get the rated capacity of the fixer if you pollute it with so much developer. The stop bath exists to wash the developer out and bring its pH down to closer to what the fix needs, so when you carry over a bunch of stop bath into the fixer, it doesn't really do much damage.

Is it better then to use a stop bath rather than a water bath if you have hard water? This is what I assumed. My water comes from a chalk aquifer (yorkshire wolds).

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Don't like better...

I have chalk water I live between two chalk rivers think the planet has only 200.

I temper to a few degrees F and use two water rinses of about 7/8 of a tank full with full inversion for 30 seconds each in place of an acid stop

There is a gelatine shock and expansion on the change in pH between the high pH developer (borax) and acid stop.

A non prehardened emulsion may be damaged it is soft compared with Ilford or Kodak.

I then use a plain hypo fix.

Rinse
hypo clear
Ilford three rinse
surfant
squeegee cause I get drying marks...