A few thoughts:

In my case, I have a permanent darkroom, the lights are on in there
during setup, but when it is unused, or when I am working, it is dark
in there - so dark bottles are probably not all that important since
the room is dark almost all the time.

Having said that - I use a lot of little bottles - for example - I use
HC-110 as my main film developer - I dilute the syrup into the stock
solution strength, then put it into 2oz bottles - brown glass, which I
buy in bulk and they are not expensive (about $0.30 each?).  To get
the working solution, I mix one entire bottle with the appropriate
amount of water.

I do a similar thing with Kodak HCA, Dektol, etc, using 2oz, 4oz and
8oz bottles as is appropriate so that for each working session I use a
small number of bottles and never use a partial bottle.  Since the
bottles are full, there is little air in them, and I suspect that the
stock solutions might last longer - but I have no data on this.

The main chemical that I do not use as one shot is fixer - this is
because disposal of it in my case is a PITA, so I use it to
exhaustion.  For fixer, I use brown glass 1gal jugs.  Don't remember
what the 1 Gal jugs cost, but I don't think that they were as much as
the plastic ones that you are looking at.

If I recall correctly, the type of bottles that I use, which can be
found at scientific supply houses are referred to as 'Boston Round' or
something like that - I have found two different types of caps for
these - ones with plastic cone shaped liners, and ones with cardboard
liners - I prefer the plastic cone ones since they hold up better and
probably retain fewer chemicals on them.

Mark

Spend a few bucks and get some glass jugs.
http://www.specialtybottle.com/

If you don't mind semi-transparent plastic, then 1-gallon bottles with
caps can be had new for between $1 to $3 each. Check out
<http://www.usplastic.com>. Try searching on "industrial jugs". Their
delivery service is very fast.

But what we could really use here is some true expert input from a
plastics engineer. Plastic technology is a mystery. Some plastics let
oxygen flow through, some let hydrocarbons pass, some are dark looking but
are not really opaque to light. What's best for chemicals? In our lab we
have some true light-opaque chemistry bottles that cost as much as $60 for
a quart size.

    Use soda bottles (PET) properly labels and store them in a
cabinet.

    Also, consider purchasing via mail order.

    http://www.specialtybottle.com/store.asp

Regards,

  John S. Douglas, Photographer -  http://www.darkroompro.com
             Please remove the "_" when replying via email

Cute, isn't it?  Check out the price of an empty spray bottle at the
hardware store - $3.00 - compared to the same bottle filled with
Windex - $1.50.

Chemical jugs are made from thicker PE plastic than milk-jugs.
I have found the best equivalent to be Minute-Maid Orange Juice
jugs at $5.00 each when filled with rather good orange juice.

As other's have mentioned, 1 liter/quart PETE soda bottles are
also suitable as PETE is reasonably gas impermeable. And splitting
a gallon of solution into smaller lots makes it last a lot longer.

My favorite, though, is the Cubitaner:
http://bestcontainers.com/hedpak---cubitainer-cubitainer--combination-packaging.html
Dektol stock keeps for a year (when made with boiled distilled water; stirred,
not shaken).

Do-it-yourself cubitainers can be made from the cartons and aluminized
Mylar bags from wine-in-a-box (don't even think of drinking the wine,
it's uniformly awful).

 I can't think of any good reason why anybody would want or need
to use gallon size anything for keeping darkroom chemicals.
 Just in case somebody else has thought of at least one good reason,
I suggest the gallon jugs in which distilled water is packaged. For
79 cents I've a jug and one gallon of distilled water.
 Purely a technicality: Volumn goes up by a power of three while
surface area by a power of two. In brief, the low surface area to
volumn ratio of large containers favors longer chemical life. That
is with all things being equall which is far from being the case.
 From Google enter, Tri Ess Sciences . They have a large selection
of bottles, jugs, and jars. Also they have a variety of caps,
including Polycone, and lids.                                    Dan

"SofaKing"  wrote in message

Years ago I wandered into a shop that catered to home brewers  (make your
own wine & beer). They sold a variety of  sized brown glass bottles and a
nice assortment of caps for really cheap $. You may have bottles like them -
they have the glass fingerhole at the top of the neck. They ranged in size
from 30 oz. up to 160 oz. Of course they were all used. With a little
washing they've become my alternative to the damned expensive brown plastic
jugs.

Doug

Air (specifically O2) is probably a bigger concern than light.  And
gallon is a large quantity.  Even if you make developer in gallon
units you are better off with smaller bottles -- quart or liter.  If
you fill them right to the top, the oxidization is minimized and your
chemicals will last longer.

Dark quart bottles are what things like Hydrogen Peroxide come in.
Just about any pharmacy has empty brown bottles in that size they will
sell you.

Here's another trick...   The dusters you can buy at any office supply
store contain a heavier than air chemical that is pretty much inert to
photochemicals.  If you put a couple of puffs of that stuff in the
bottle, it acts as a float and keeps the bad old air away from the
good old chemicals.

Shop around.  Chemical supply houses sell quality plastic ware at a quite a
bit less.  Some of the bigger photo mail order places do too.  If I don't
need the brown color (usually I don't), I've been using 2 liter soft drink
bottles.  They are impermeable to air (unlike LD polyethylene), convenient,
and extremely cheap, but you may have to replace them a bit more often.

apr1204 from Lloyd Erlick,

I think the whole issue of light having an effect on darkroom
solutions is academic. Whether a container is clear, brown or opaque
has little practical effect in a usual darkroom.

Direct sunlight would be of most consequence to chemical soultions.
Direct, bright daylight would be next. Interior, artificial lighting
would be the least degrading light (well, next to safelight...). The
energy content of the light is the issue. (Don't put your grow op in
the darkroom!)

Most darkrooms are dark most of the time. If solutions are stored in
clear glass bottles in a cabinet or under a sink, in a room that is
mostly dark, and lit by artificial light when it is not dark, I'd say
the degradation of chemistry by light would be too slight to consider.
Much better to control oxygen degradation.

I like clear containers because I can take a good look at my
solutions, and especially because I can monitor the condition of my
containers...

Over the years I have gone from using gallon, or larger, jugs, to a
multiplicity of small bottles suitable for one shot processing, to
very nearly no storage of liquid chemistry at all.

I like to measure out dry chemicals and mix directly to a working
solution.

But of course, once I've mixed and used my working solution of Ansco
120 print developer (the D23 of prints...) the temptation to store and
re-use is sometimes overwhelming. So I put it in a clear bottle, and
refrain from putting a label on it. If I can't remember what it is or
how old it is, it is too old. I find 120 does fairly well after
twenty-four hours, even forty-eight. But I think making it with
distilled water is far more important than storing it in a brown
container.

Some chemicals take a while to dissolve, so per cent solutions have to
be stored. EDTA is a good example. I don't worry about light harming
my EDTA in its clear bottle (made of PETE plastic). I make ten per
cent solutions of potassium bromide (and keep it in clear PETE), but
not because it's hard to dissolve -- it absorbs moisture from the air
so readily that the contents of the (brown glass!) storage bottle cake
up if it's opened too often. So I open it around four times over its
lifetime to make my per cent solutions. (Actually, now I think of it,
Kodak sells potasium bromide in polyethylene now. My rapidly
seniorizing memory shows it surprisingly clearly in brown glass...).

A very good source of containers for the darkroom is -- the garbage.
Restaurant dumpsters supply lots of very heavy duty plastic pails and
lids, in sizes from a few liters to twenty liters, both
air/water-tight and less tight. Stay away from any that held greasy
stuff. Pails that held fruit salad clean rapidly. (Seeing the size of
those pails puts me right off fruit salad, perhaps not very
logically.) I've got several twenty liter pails that originally held
dill pickles. They cleaned up in a moment, but the smell of garlic
pickles held on for months.

Any kind of chemically based photo or cinema film processing plant
will throw away many types of containers and closures, in amazingly
large quantities. Glass jugs and cubitainers that held distilled water
are the best because they require little or no cleaning.

I used to work in a welfare emergency hostel, which discarded 125 ml
brown glass bottles that came filled with children's cough syrup. They
went through them at a furious rate. There was a product called
'grippe water' that was given to babies. The darkroomie in me compels
me to read the label on every damn thing I get in my hands. Grippe
water was five per cent alcohol. None of the "toxics" in the darkroom,
powder, liquid or gas, smelly or insidious, comes close to offending
me as much as giving alcohol to infants.

It's not necessary to pay nine dollars for a plastic container. It's
possible to pay zero, or to buy much superior glass containers for
less than that. In fact, the obnoxious, combative darkroomie in me
says any photo shop that tries to sell nine dollar (would those be US
dollars?) plastic jugs does not merit patronage.

Same goes for overpriced plastic funnels! (Cut the bottom off a two
liter PETE soft drink bottle, turn it upside down, and -- there is a
funnel.)

regards,
--le