Where did I go wrong? (cloudy negatives)

[philmud]

Apologies for the length of this post, but I want to give a good sense of the variables.

Last night I decided to have a crack at developing film for the first time. Courtesy of youtube and an infosheet that came with the film I decided I had a reasonable idea how to do it and I set to work.

The film was some expired (by approx 4 months) B&W Rollei Retro400 film that I bought from Michael's in Melbourne and which came with a small bottle of developer (RHS Film Developer).

I exposed the shots on an old Voightlander Vitomatic, which worked beautifully for the couple of rolls of colour shots I put through it and had developed.

So, firstly I prewashed the film for 30 seconds in water, agitating every 3 seconds.

Then I developed the film in the developer (1 part dev to 7 parts water at 20o) for 13 minutes, agitating each 30 seconds.

After this I used RCS Citrin Stop Bath (diluted at 1:19) for 1 minute - I agitated this once.

Now the fixer is where I suspect I made the mistake. The recommended product was ROLLEI R3 HIIGH ENERGY FIX, however Michaels only had RXN Fixing Bath Neutral - I queried this with the sales guy as this product appears to be made for making prints, not developing negatives and is pH neutral - the sales guy assured me you can use it for either.

I diluted the fixer at 1:4 and used it on the film for 3 minutes, agitating every 30 seconds.

After this I washed the film in water for a total of 15 minutes.

When I removed the film, most of the frames looked OK, though some had milky blotches on them - as the film dried however more of these cloudy blotches appeared and spread, and now, of the 2 films I developed there are maybe only a dozen useable frames - What did I do wrong? Was it the fixer? Was it the expired film?

Any help would be appreciated and as I said earlier, I used a couple of youtube tutorials and the (very comprehensive) info that I got with the film pack - if anyone knows of a good tutorial I should check out that'd be good too.

The pics below are of the problem I am encountering - I don't want to develop the other 3 rolls I have until I know why I am getting the problem so I can fix it.

Thanks again