stupid question... developing tank

[hammy]

I have a stainless steel developing tank. It has 3 canisters in it, one for 35mm and two others for medium format...

How do I develop just a single 35mm roll in it? Do i take the other two canisters out and let the single 35mm slide around? Or keep them in?

 

[terri]

I've only used Paterson tanks (plastic) with plastic reels. I have a dual tank but am usually only developing one roll at a time, and I removed the other reel long ago. It doesn't slide around at all - no problem! Can't imagine it would be any different with your stainless.

 

[Jeff Canes]

I would keep the extra reels in the tank. My thinking is that went empting or flipping the tank the reel will slide for end to end, not sure if that is bad or not, a plastic tank will not do this because reels are locked in place on the center post

 

[df3photo]

I would leave the emptys in also. It seems you would get a more even flow of chemicals across your film instead of the real possibly sliding with the used chemical...
I would leave it in.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Leaving the other reels in or not depends upon your method of agitation.
If you do the inversion method (turning the tank upside-down) then you need to leave the other spirals in to stop the one with the film on sliding up and down on the core. This can take it out of the dev and it will not process correctly.
If you use the Kodak figure-of-eight method then you can safely take them out as the tank isn't inverted (less to wash with this method )
Remember that if you are processing only one film you only need to use enough chemicals to cover that spiral, you don't need to fill the tank.