# Iron Question



## jARDINI (Sep 2, 2007)

i bought 300ml of iron from a local fish store. they said to add 3ml every other day. does this seem right. there is 43 watts of 6500k lighting and DIY C02


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## jARDINI (Sep 2, 2007)

oh ya its a 10 galolon heavely planted mayaca,red ludwigia,ricca,blyxia japonica, rotala rondifolia, and thats it for now


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

The answer obviously depends on how much Fe is in the solution. Do you have a brand name for the solution? What do the instructions that came with the bottle say?


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## jARDINI (Sep 2, 2007)

it is not a brand name. they were seling it for $1.00 per 100ml. it was labled as 10% Chelate Iron. It also said 1ml= .1ppm/20 gallons


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## xjia (Sep 19, 2006)

except for iron, any other nutrients u dosing? 
NPK are most important nutrients.


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## jARDINI (Sep 2, 2007)

nitrite, phosphate, and seachem flourish


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Flourish has iron in it, probably enough for the plants. Why dose more? If Flourish has enough already there is no way to figure how much more you "should" dose. Greg Watson used to add extra iron to CSM+B for those who wanted to dose more iron, but soon found that the extra iron provided no advantage so he stopped selling that version. If you do want to dose more I suggest figuring out from what is in Flourish how much you dose in the Flourish, then adding an equal amount separately, to double the amount of iron being dosed.


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## voytek333 (May 25, 2006)

Hello

I may be wrong but ... I truly doubt that you will OVERDOSE iron with your rotala and ludwigia ... in my tank iron gets "eaten" right away it's never enough of it = ) My advice 1. just observe the plants and their red coloration - if they are red "enough" the iron levels are adequate ... 2. if you want to be sure ... simply get yourself a test for iron = ) 


take care


voytek


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

The red color in plants is not an indicator of how much iron is consumed by the plants. Either the plants are red because they evolved to be red, or they are red due to stress. The first group get redder when they have adequate nutrients and light, especially light. The second group get redder if you restrict their access to nitrates.


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## Jessie (Apr 23, 2007)

hoppycalif said:


> The red color in plants is not an indicator of how much iron is consumed by the plants. Either the plants are red because they evolved to be red, or they are red due to stress. The first group get redder when they have adequate nutrients and light, especially light. The second group get redder if you restrict their access to nitrates.


That's very interesting. I'm not sure how to phrase this really, but....what plants (for example) are one or the other?

I'm going to assume Alternanthera is red because it evolved that way.
Would Limnophila aromatica be an example of a plant that reddens due to stress?


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

I don't know the answer to that question. I can tell you that all of the red plants I have tried were red because their genes made them red. They all got redder as they got better lighting and less red as they got more shade. I have never played with changing the amount of iron I dose, nor have I intentionally restricted the nitrate I dose.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

Iron is nearly always sold as a 1% solution.


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