Sharing some developments (no pun intended)

[MrSeeks]

Well, I finally got the hang of putting a roll of film on a stainless steel reel. Unfortunately I have a 3 reel tank and only 2 reels to put inside it. I have heard its bad to not have the max number of reels inside a tank. Is this true? If I had known that I would have spent 40 on another reel for my tank vs the 50 I spent on getting some color film developed from the lab.

 

[shutterfinger]

Tanks with the number of reels the tank was designed for will allow no more than 1/8 inch movement when doing inversion agitation. Not having the number of reels the tank was designed for allows the reel(s) to move during inversion agitation causing the reel to come out of the chemical in use unless the tank is full to the top of the cap. The reel movement can cause streaks or over developed edges.

 

[MattKing]

Not to mention that with two steel reels in a three reel steel tank, the racket you will create when you invert the tank will be loud enough to wake the dead!
In the short term, you could put a spacer of some type between the top of the second reel and the top of the tank. It should be made of something unlikely to be affected by the chemicals, and permit unimpeded flow of those chemicals.
A short piece of plastic drain pipe sized just smaller than the diameter of the tank might work. I would scallop the edges a bit and open a finger hole or two in it, to make it easy to remove.
A bent and therefore unserviceable third film reel would be even better.