Do all Lime Sulfur products separate & degrade rapidly, especially when the container gets low?

SU2

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I'll with-hold the retailer's name but they're prominent (got the impression they're one of the biggest, maybe the biggest), anyways I got the 2nd-smallest offering to test it out and, while it works great when fresh, I've found it to degrade wayyy too quickly for my liking and I'm unsure if it's the product/retailer or just the nature of LS....for example, I'm about to do some bleaching as it's rained all day (but has just let-up) so figure the wood will be as receptive as it's capable of (will be doing a lot of h202 & iso scrubs on lots of trunking, too!) and I'm going to do my usual routine- aim to pour-out ~24hrs' worth of LS from the main bottle into my 'usage bottle', a bottle that's 1/3 the size of the OEM bottle....I leave the main bottle somewhere inside, in stable temp & in darkness, but find that if I pour like 0.5oz into a 5oz bottle that I'll have to use it that day or the next, otherwise it's separated too-much to get a proper re-mix going and keep using it (it does bleach when in its degraded state, just less effectively, kinda as-expected)

Just realized when pouring today's project's LS that I needed to order some so figured I'd ask you guys ;D Any specific retailer recommendations would be greatly appreciated!!
 

WNC Bonsai

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What symptoms of degradation are you seeing? It may be oxidation and if so and it is in a plastic bottle try squeezing it to get as much air out as possible. Back when I did wet photo processing there were plastic bottles for the chemicals that had accordian folds to allow you to do this easily. For stuff in galss bottles get out your marble collection and fill it up or decam into smaller bottles.
 
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SU2

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What symptoms of degradation are you seeing? It may be oxidation and if so and it is in a plastic bottle try squeezing it to get as much air out as possible. Back when I did wet photo processing there were plastic bottles for the chemicals that had accordian folds to allow you to do this easily. For stuff in galss bottles get out your marble collection and fill it up or decam into smaller bottles.
Re symptoms it's mostly, maybe entirely, separation & evaporation. I can leave a bottle of 'for use' (where bottle is <10% full, lots of air in-bottle) and if I forgot about it for a week it'd be mostly dried at that point, but at just a couple days it's separating and, after stirring for usage, doesn't seem as effective as it is when fresh..
[and those bottles sound awesome, I do that on anything where air is a factor, people look at me funny when I squeeze a soda bottle's air out ;P ]

Yes. Shake it up and keep on trucking.
That's kinda annoying but good to know, thank you!!! From this I'm basically inferring that, despite having a *ton* of deadwood in my backyard & always bleaching something, that it's not smart for me to think "oh I get a great price-break if I buy a gallon, I'll get that!" is it? I got an 8oz (iirc) bottle of my current stuff, seems to have made around 4mo maybe, now that I'm looking to grab some more (and knowing that this is just a property of LS, not a bad batch or retailer) I figure that it probably isn't smartest to get savings on large containers but rather to get the freshness of the 8oz ones and just keep buying them as-needed (can't help wondering if it'd degrade much if left un-opened, in full darkness at stable, <75deg environment, I'm thinking this because perhaps I could get 32oz prices *but* request (4) 8oz bottles, I just don't know if time-from-production is a factor in this or not!)

Thanks (as usual!) a lot man :D
 

Adair M

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@SU2, do you have a lot of buttonwood trees? What all do you have that consumes so much lime sulfur?

You live on the Gulf Coast. That’s possibly the worst possible environment for keeping deadwood!

Honestly, it’s best to match your trees with your environment. Otherwise, bonsai will be a constant source of frustration!
 
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