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Thread: Dosing Iron

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Dec 2009
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    Unhappy Dosing Iron

    Started dosing iron with Kent chelated iron sup. and using Seachum test kit. The test kit says to maintain between 0.1 and 0.2 per liter.( Its difficult to get a reading this low) Is this enough iron to increase growth or is it possible to go higher without bad results?

  2. #2
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    Re: Dosing Iron

    Santamonica experimented with high doses of iron a while back

    Extract...

    Iron Overdosing: I tried adding an iron supplement for many years, but never saw any affect. I always followed the instructions, such as Kent's Iron+Manganese "Add two teaspoons per 100 gal, per week". It had no visible effect. But after I started to read the literature about algae and iron, and after I realized that I now have much more algae in my system that the average tank does, I went out on a limb and poured in 8 ounces of Kent's. This is 24 times the recommended dosage for 100 gallons. But I reasoned that it's not the gallons that matter, it's the amount of algae. And it worked. The algae in the scrubber, that previously was yellow and hard (due to lack of iron), turned solid green and fluffy. Growth was much faster that week too.

    So if more was better, much more should be much better. So I poured in a HALF GALLON of the Kent's. This is 225 times the recommended dosage, and over 9 times more than what I put in before. This was the biggest mistake I've made yet on this tank (coral-wise). Within a few hours, both of the bubble corals shrank up to nothing, and started letting pieces go. The next day, my 3 year old 5" litho was half gone. And by the end of the week about 30 of my 60 corals were completely wiped out. Iron was even beginning to deposit on the inside of the tubing that feeds the scrubbers. Well, I never did a waterchange, and things have gone back to normal, but now I know the power and the problems of adding iron. The more algae you have in a system, the more iron it can use; but don't add too much. How much is too much? The green soft corals (like a green bubble) seem to be affected first, so watch those.


    viewtopic.php?f=7&t=91&p=540&hilit=iron+safe#p540

  3. #3

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    Re: Dosing Iron

    Thanks R.P. for posting that. It helps to have some type of guidelines to go by.

  4. #4
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    Re: Dosing Iron

    Dosing is going to be a function of how much algae is in your system, and how much nori you are feeding. The larger your scrubber and the more algae in your system, requires more iron if the algae is growing yellow. If it's not growing yellow, it does not need more iron.

    Feeding nori provides lots of iron.

  5. #5

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    Re: Dosing Iron

    Quote Originally Posted by SantaMonica
    Dosing is going to be a function of how much algae is in your system, and how much nori you are feeding. The larger your scrubber and the more algae in your system, requires more iron if the algae is growing yellow. If it's not growing yellow, it does not need more iron.

    Feeding nori provides lots of iron.
    Thanks S.M. I am getting yellow on my screen but seems to be in the middle more than anywhere else. Tried dosing Iron but didnt seem to make alot of difference. Since i switch from cfl spots to 26W cfl spirals with reflectors, I noticed the yellow.
    Also since I switched from double screens to single, I don't get as much growth as I use to. I do have some Nori but never used much of it. Going to try it instead of the iron. Thanks Again !!

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