Here's a strange water story....(posted 8184 days ago)Many moons ago when I moved from central Florida (decent water) to north Florida (rather hard water) I suddenly got negs that had golfball grain, or maybe more like the size of grapefruit.
I immediately assumed that the cause was the change in water supply (it was) and mixed the developer with distilled water. _Still_ golfball grain. I mixed everything with distilled water and could still go bowling with the grain.
After a month of so of frustration, I began calling around for advice. Ed Meyers referred me to a chemist at Agfa, who said, (in a very thick German accent) "hard vater, hard vash vater, grain!"
On his advice, I had a Culligan water-softener tank installed. No more grain! Tri-X in Tallahassee looked like Plus-X in Orlando! I was astounded.
The point of all this, I suppose, is that water hardness can have a dramatic effect on neg quality, and that effect may not occur in the process step that we assume it would.