# Dosing Iron, EI and Seachem recommendations



## SniperLk (May 25, 2008)

Hello,

I'm a bit confused about the Iron dosing recommendations from EI and Seachem.

According to the Seachem Dosing Chart, they recommends to use 6 times per week 5mL of Flourish Iron for 200L. That's to say 1.5ppm of Iron per week (as stated by the APC fertilator)

And EI advises to drop 1.8g of Plantex CSM+B each week for the same tank, which represents 0.5ppm. (and EI is supposed to dose in large excess...)

So why such a difference ? Is there any errors in Seachem dosing chart or something ?

Thanks


----------



## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

Following the Seachem dosing chart works well with low to moderate light aquariums. If you have higher lighting, just dose more.

I wrote the Seachem doinh calculator in the fertilizing sticky. It hasn't worked since servers were changed.

I can send it to you if you PM me your email address.

The reason that F. Iron is suggested to dose daily is because the iron in the F. Iron isn't available for much over 24 hours.


----------



## SniperLk (May 25, 2008)

Left C said:


> Following the Seachem dosing chart works well with low to moderate light aquariums. If you have higher lighting, just dose more.
> 
> I wrote the Seachem doinf calculator in the fertilizing sticky. It hasn't worked since servers were changed.
> 
> ...


Hi, so you think that I should dose even more Flourish Iron with a heavy planted tank, but it's still 1.5ppm/week, that's to say *way more* than EI recommendations (designed for heavy planted tank) !!

That's what I don't understand...


----------



## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

Let's say that your aquarium has 170 liters of water. Seachem recommends dosing 4.5 mL of F. Iron daily along with 3.7 mL of Flourish 2x weekly.

If you are using other products along with Seachem's line; you should adjust accordingly.

Your best response may be to ask this question in Seachem's forum on various sites.


----------



## SniperLk (May 25, 2008)

Left C said:


> Let's say that your aquarium has 170 liters of water. Seachem recommends dosing 4.5 mL of F. Iron daily along with 3.7 mL of Flourish 2x weekly.
> 
> If you are using other products along with Seachem's line; you should adjust accordingly.
> 
> Your best response may be to ask this question in Seachem's forum on various sites.


Hi and thanks for your answer.

Ok so for 170 liters, if we follow seachem recommendations for *moderate light aquariums*, we add per week :
0.1ppm of iron (3.5*2=7mL of flourish) + 1.5ppm (4.25*6=25.5mL of Flourish Iron) -->*1.6ppm* of Iron each week.

Then if we look at EI recommendations for* high light aquariums* :
3*1/8 tsp of CSM+B per week which represents *0.15ppm* of Iron each week (thanks to the fertilator again)

--> So seachem recommends to add 10x the amount of Iron that recommends EI (which the aim's to dose a lot (too much) nutriments !).

All I want is to understand why such a difference.. (maybe the fertilator is simply wrong ?) It's really weird...


----------



## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

SniperLk said:


> Hi and thanks for your answer.
> 
> Ok so for 170 liters, if we follow seachem recommendations for *moderate light aquariums*, we add per week :
> 0.1ppm of iron (3.5*2=7mL of flourish) + 1.5ppm (4.25*6=25.5mL of Flourish Iron) -->*1.6ppm* of Iron each week.
> ...


I just double checked the numbers and our numbers basically agree. They are below.

It seems that Seachem recommends quite a bit more Fe than EI. I don't know why.

There are some problems with the fertilator and Seachem's products. The fertilator says that there is iron in practically all of Seachem's line of ferts (unless it's been fixed), but that doesn't make any difference here. All of our products here contain Fe.

I don't think that the Fe calculation of CSM+B using the fertfriend is a problem. After I calculated the weekly EI dosing for 3/8 tsp or 30 mL of Trace I found that all the ppm's of Fe from the three products are basically very close to each other. That's below too.

I use the fertfriend calculator sometimes: http://www.fishfriend.com/fertfriend.html

I plugged in 170 liters into my Seachem calculator and you dose:
4.5 mL of F. Iron 6x per week and 3.7 mL Flourish 2x per week

Then according to the fertfriend calculator:
4.5 mL F. Iron = 0.2647 ppm of Fe per dose
3.7 mL Flourish = 0.0696 ppm of Fe per dose

Then (6 x 0.2647) + (2 x 0.0696) = 1.7274 ppm of Fe per week - This agrees with what you are saying.

Then using EI for a 170 liter aquarium = 1/8 tsp of CSM+B or 10 mL of Trace 3x weekly
1/8 tsp = 0.12 ppm of Fe per dose or 0.36 ppm of Fe per week from the fertilator
10 mL of TMG = 0.0411 ppm of Fe per dose or 0.1233 ppm of Fe per week from the fertfriend
10 mL of Flourish = 0.1882 ppm of Fe per dose or 0.5646 ppm of Fe per week from the fertfriend

To make the above paragraph easier to read, I'll list each product's ppm of Fe per week. We can see that they are very close to each other:
CSM+B = 0.36 ppm of Fe per week
TMG = 0.1233 ppm of Fe per week
Flourish = 0.5646 ppm of Fe per week

Again, I don't know why Seachem recommends more Fe than EI. This is a question for Seachem's tech representatives to answer.

Do you know what you get when you cross an elephant with a rhinoceros? &#8230;.elephino!


----------



## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

*Who knows what the right level of Fe is?*

I think the problem you are facing is that no one really knows what is the right level of Fe! 
Fe has very complex water chemistry. If you throw in 0.1 ppm of Fe in your tank it will go away almost instantly. At ordinary pH, Fe+3 and Fe+2 will precipitate out as their respective oxides. Typically people add chelating agents like EDTA to help keep the Fe in solution. Even with these, the Fe eventually precipitates out into the substrate. Now you see that the longer you can keep Fe in solution, the less you have to use but there is a trade off. You have to add more Chelating agents and keep the pH as low as possible. 
Now here is another point. The Fe that precipitates out into the substrate is not gone! Most rooted plants have the ability to extracted Fe out of the substrate. This is how they get Fe in real life since there are no chelating agents in nature. Having Fe in your substrate is not at all a bad thing; since, the plants can use it or not and it is not contaminating the water environment. 
My feeling is that it doesn't matter a lot whether you add 1.5 or .15 ppm per week as long as you do 20% - 30% water changes as well.


----------



## SniperLk (May 25, 2008)

Glad to see that my math was good 

About asking Seachem’s tech representatives I don't think it will help. They gonna say that their products work great, their research showed that.. bla bla bli bla bla bla... --> they don't really care about what someone recommends..

ray-the-pilot : Yeah you must be right.. it would be nice to see what are the effects of overdosing Fe on a tank...


----------



## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

The version of EI at TPT has extra Fe added: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/water-parameters/21944-_dosing-regimes_.html


----------



## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Shortly after Greg Watson began selling dry fertilizers he offered CSM+B with extra iron mixed in to double the amount of iron. After a short time he found that the extra iron was of no benefit, so he dropped that product. I bought my CSM+B plus extra iron from him when he was still selling it and that is all I have used since then. I only do so because I'm too cheap to toss out perfectly good trace element mix. My opinion is that you don't need extra iron, but it also doesn't do any harm if you use it.


----------



## thefishmanlives (Feb 15, 2008)

i wish someone had a definite answer as whether additional iron works or not. Ive seen numerous people refer to needing more iron to get their plants colors up to snuff, especially reds. Then Ill read posts like this. Maybe in some cases the substrate plus trace fertilizer gives enough iron and in other cases it doesnt? I have used ti and not used and still am not sure. I do have Aquasoil in my 150watt MH lit 29 gallon and dose 7ml Flourish 3x a week + 5ml Kent Fe 2-3x a week.


----------



## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

One thing you can be sure of: plants are not red because they get lots of iron. They are red because it is in their genes to be red. That red is most pronounced, for those plants, when they are growing best, which means ample fertilizers, CO2 and good lighting. Some plants will become reddish when stressed by having too little nitrates. I don't think I have seen anyone succeed in making plants red by adding iron, unless they are starting with very low iron amounts in the water, thus causing the normally red plants not to grow at their best.


----------



## scottward (May 12, 2008)

Interesting. I just actually posted a new thread asking about whether there is any benefit in dosing additional iron. i had already made my post before realising that this discussion was already on here.
I have this theory that my Echinodorous Tenellus greens up better and spreads across the substrate better with additional F. Iron. Not sure though.


----------



## nfrank (Jan 29, 2005)

*Dosing Iron with AquaSoil*

In my new ADA Amazonia aquasoil tanks, i occasionally add NKP, but have cut back on TMG dosing and the plants are doing fine. Most plants are rooted in substrate, but i also have lots of moss and ferns.

Is this because this substrate has sufficient and available Fe and other traces like other "soils?"

Have other AquaSoil users modified/reduced their Fe+trace additions?

--Neil


----------



## art_b (Sep 2, 2006)

Seachem uses a different iron in the form of iron gluconate. Using the recommended dosage of 5 ml per 200 liters, you will end up with 0.25 ppm iron. This iron is used up by plants or is oxidized or precipitates in 24 hours. So you need to dose daily to keep it at .25 ppm.


----------



## nfrank (Jan 29, 2005)

art_b said:


> Seachem's iron is used up by plants or is oxidized or precipitates in 24 hours. So you need to dose daily .


good to know... I love TMG because of it very stable chelator..... 1 dose per week is effective, irregardless of the issue of concentration needed with AS.

Do you know if Flourish iron and regular Flourish both use iron gluconate? I am thinking of switching to new stuff because TMG has recently experienced a huge price jump in CN (probably because of high fuel cost last year).
However, I am definitely not a daily dosing kind of guy. I know people say that if you feed the fish, you can feed the plants and make it part of the routine.


----------



## art_b (Sep 2, 2006)

nfrank said:


> good to know... I love TMG because of it very stable chelator..... 1 dose per week is effective, irregardless of the issue of concentration needed with AS.
> 
> Do you know if Flourish iron and regular Flourish both use iron gluconate? I am thinking of switching to new stuff because TMG has recently experienced a huge price jump in CN (probably because of high fuel cost last year).
> However, I am definitely not a daily dosing kind of guy. I know people say that if you feed the fish, you can feed the plants and make it part of the routine.


If you go to www.seachem.com, the iron used in Flourish and Flourish Iron is bith ferrous gluconate. Here is the thread where I asked seachem if their iron is available only for about 24 hours http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/seachem/59344-flourish-iron-dosing.html .


----------

