Which of the following chemicals can be reused?

I just ordered the chemicals to develop B&W. I got Ilfotec DD-X, Ilford Rapid Fix, and Ilfostop stop bath. Which can be reused?

Stop bath & fixer.

Fixer.

And working strength stop bath over a fairly short length of time - if you store working strength stop bath too long, things can grow in it.

As for Ilfotec DDX, the Ilford data sheet describes how you can re-use it, at a small loss of quality and, in my opinion, an unacceptable increase in complexity.

Fix can be reused if the same day. After that , some silver precipitates and will glue itself to the next film leaving a terrible spot job. It looks like grey pieces in the bottom of bottle, but some a too small to be seen. Been trying for 40 years to find a way to filter it out without success. I use fix one day, and finish it off with test prints. It ain`t worth the trouble.

In the long past, commercial labs may have allowed it to settle and skimmed of the top for reuse of put it through a centrifuge. The best filter I found was cotton wool from first aid kit and it still does not get the fine stuff.

Ronald Moravec said:

Fix can be reused if the same day. After that , some silver precipitates and will glue itself to the next film leaving a terrible spot job. It looks like grey pieces in the bottom of bottle, but some a too small to be seen. Been trying for 40 years to find a way to filter it out without success. I use fix one day, and finish it off with test prints. It ain`t worth the trouble.

In the long past, commercial labs may have allowed it to settle and skimmed of the top for reuse of put it through a centrifuge. The best filter I found was cotton wool from first aid kit and it still does not get the fine stuff.

Click to expand...

I have never had this issue with fixer. I reuse mine many times, although always well within capacity.

Test your working strengh fixer regularly for exhaustion, before you develop. The easiest way to test is by using a piece of scrap film leader. Place a small spot of fixer on to the scrap of film. Leave it for a minute until you can see that it is clearing the film where the spot has been placed. Then drop the scrap into a small beaker of fixer. Watch the film and note when you can't see any difference between the dot and the rest of the film which should by then be completely clear. This is your clearing time. Double (at least) this time for your fixing time.

Before you develop, just repeat this test. When the clearing time doubles discard the fixer and mix fresh. Personally I never wait till the clearing time has actually doubled but you should be safe if you stick within these guidelines.

The other thing to consider is that the newer 'T' or 'Delta' grain films (Kodak TMAX, Ilford Delta, Fuji Acros) take quite a bit longer to fix than conventional films and exhaust the fixer quicker so don't use clearing/fixing times established on conventional film and then transfer it to a T-grain film

Thanks for this very useful post!


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First, developer is best used one-shot. Just mix up what you need for each session/roll/batch.

Second, if I'm not mistaken, Ilfostop is a citric-acid-based stop. Since citric acid is organic, it has a tendency to grow bacterial slime and doesn't keep well. I use citric acid stop one-shot most of the time. Mix up the minimum amount you need for a session. If you are planning to process on two (or maybe three) days in a row, then you can save it and re-use it. Otherwise, toss it. If you're just doing a small amount of film, you can mix it half-strength to stretch it a bit. Still, stop bath is pretty cheap, so when in doubt, throw it out.

An acetic acid stop like Kodak Indicator Stop will last much longer. It can be stored and used until it just starts to lose its yellow indicator color (don't use it till it turns blue - it loses its activity long before that). I used to keep a liter or so for film developing for months.

Fixer: Although many keep and re-use fixer for fixing film, I don't think it's such a good idea. I try to accumulate enough film so that I have a large enough batch to use up all or most of the capacity of at least 500ml of fix so that I can dispose of it after the batch. This is certainly "best practice" (as is two-bath fixing, even for film).

That said, if you do decide to re-use fix for film, mix up the smallest amount that you can practically get away with so you don't end up keeping it for very long. Keep track of the capacity and do clip tests to check for exhaustion before each session (search here for clip test if you're not familiar with it).

Hope this helps,

Doremus