George I am sorry you are encountering trouble with Tri-X in DiXactol. There are a few older style films, and Tri-X is one of them, where base fog is very high in DiXactol. It is still printable, but it gives a murky look which makes judging density and contrast very difficult. That said, I have a number of clients who swear by the combination including a leading London fashion photographer. I would personally recommend that you move to HP5 Plus which performs best of all in DiXactol in medium format. The new 400 Delta is pretty good too. For 35mm, I would recommend Delta 100 or T-Max100. Additionally, I strongly recommend that you move away from two bath development to single bath with partial stand development. This has been my recommendation for some time now in the notes sent out with DiXactol, and also on my web site (www.barrythornton.com) The effect of the partial stand development is to give the same highlight compensation while shadows are nursed up as two bath. The stain is greater however, as is the sharpness. Economy is better too usually. You should start with a time of about 9 minutes for pretty well all films (NOT Pan F or Technical Pan) and fine tune from there. This technique also completely overcomes the very occasional problem that occurs with negative unevenness or streaking with two bath due to contamination problems. Thousands of people use two bath DiXactol without problem, but most are switching to partial stand single bath because it gives even better results. The colour you are seeing drain from the tank is nothing to do with the developer. It s simply the anti-halation dye from the film. Some films have a really dark colour, others virtually nothing. There are many different colours too. It has no effect whatsoever on the development with DiXactol or any other developer. Hope that helps.(posted 8348 days ago)Barry Thornton