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can i use a liquid iron supplement mixed in with my trace element mix?

john6

Member
Joined
23 Mar 2022
Messages
306
Location
Scunthorpe
I have just been given 2 bottles of Easy Life Ferro, I make my own ferts using dry salts and use an automatic doser to dose daily, i use a trace mix and make 1000ml of fert, as my tank uses a lot of iron rather than seperately dose the iron ( as i havent got a spare head anyway) would it be ok to mix it in my trace mix fert.
 
Of course you can. The liquid fert is no different than the micro solution you are making. Mix them together any way you want. You are just adding more iron and water.

Curious how do you know that your tank is using lots of iron?
 
Of course you can. The liquid fert is no different than the micro solution you are making. Mix them together any way you want. You are just adding more iron and water.

Curious how do you know that your tank is using lots of iron?

Probably gonna get slated but i use a test kit, goes from 1.6 after dosing on a sunday to 0 in about 6 days.
I maybe wrong but that seems alot to me.
 
Probably gonna get slated but i use a test kit, goes from 1.6 after dosing on a sunday to 0 in about 6 days.
Dont trust test kits, trust what your plants are telling you, do they look like they have a Fe deficiency?
Plus 1.6ppm Fe is over three times the full EI weekly dose, which isn't going to be all used up in a week
 
Dont trust test kits, trust what your plants are telling you, do they look like they have a Fe deficiency?
Plus 1.6ppm Fe is over three times the full EI weekly dose, which isn't going to be all used up in a week
Am I right in thinking that yellowing leaves is an iron deficiancy?
20220605_163659.jpg
 
Hi all,
Probably gonna get slated but i use a test kit, goes from 1.6 after dosing on a sunday to 0 in about 6 days.
I maybe wrong but that seems alot to me.
Dont trust test kits, trust what your plants are telling you, do they look like they have a Fe deficiency?
Plus 1.6ppm Fe is over three times the full EI weekly dose, which isn't going to be all used up in a week
If you assume these are real values, and just for the moment we will, it isn't that the plants taking up the iron (Fe) ions (Fe++(+)), it is those ions forming insoluble compounds and precipitating out of solution.

large_solubility_rules_chart-mk-png-png.png

Am I right in thinking that yellowing leaves is an iron deficiancy?
It looks like the plant in the foreground (Helanthium tenellum ?) might be iron deficient. Iron is non-mobile within the plant, so the thing to look for is <"yellowing (chlorosis) in new leaves">.

cheers Darrel
 
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Probably gonna get slated but i use a test kit, goes from 1.6 after dosing on a sunday to 0 in about 6 days.
I maybe wrong but that seems alot to me.
Are you only dosing iron/micros once a week???

You should be dosing daily or every other day.

And there isn't a tank in the world the uptakes 1.6 ppm Fe. Myself and many, many others dose less than 0.5 Fe weekly into very heavily planted high light tanks with no deficiencies.

The yellowing could be lots of things. Diagnosing deficiencies is tricky business. Most deficiencies look a lot a like.

If you want help with that, post a full tank shot with as much information as you can provide.
 
Are you only dosing iron/micros once a week???

You should be dosing daily or every other day.

And there isn't a tank in the world the uptakes 1.6 ppm Fe. Myself and many, many others dose less than 0.5 Fe weekly into very heavily planted high light tanks with no deficiencies.

The yellowing could be lots of things. Diagnosing deficiencies is tricky business. Most deficiencies look a lot a like.

If you want help with that, post a full tank shot with as much information as you can provide.
I dose macro's Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Trace mix Monday, Wednesday, Friday and 50% water change on Sunday.
If its difficult to tell deficiencies by looking at the plants ( Which everybody on here says to do) then how are we to know what the problem is just by looking?
I use test kits as a guide not a pinpoint accurate measurement, I come from the reefing world where testing is key.
So If everybody says test kits are useless and its difficult to diagnose just by looking then how are we supposed to know what the problem is?
 
Hi all,
If its difficult to tell deficiencies by looking at the plants ( Which everybody on here says to do) then how are we to know what the problem is just by looking?
It is, and it isn't, to a large degree it depends on the nature of the nutrient that is deficient. The easy ones to diagnose are the <"non-mobile nutrients">, because deficiencies of these effect young leaves. The down-side is that it is <"only new leaves">, that grow after the nutrient has been restored, that will be non-deficient.

For the mobile elements things are a lot more difficult, mainly because there are a lot more of them. The good news is that the plant can move these around, so that when they stop being Liebig's Limiting nutrient, you see a <"pretty instant growth response">. Personally I don't try to diagnose deficiencies in older leaves, I just add more of a <"complete fertiliser">.

cheers Darrel
 
I dose macro's Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Trace mix Monday, Wednesday, Friday and 50% water change on Sunday.
If its difficult to tell deficiencies by looking at the plants ( Which everybody on here says to do) then how are we to know what the problem is just by looking?
I use test kits as a guide not a pinpoint accurate measurement, I come from the reefing world where testing is key.
So If everybody says test kits are useless and its difficult to diagnose just by looking then how are we supposed to know what the problem is?
There is a chart that has been going around for years describing/showing deficiency symptoms. What most don't know is that it was created for terrestrial plants, not aquatic plants.

In my opinion it does more harm than good. Different plants react differently to fertilizer levels. What one plants loves another might hate.

And I can't tell you how many people quickly diagnose something like "low potassium". Then you ask what they are dosing and it's 40 ppm per week.

Much like you and iron. Your iron dosing is not deficient.

The reality is most deficiencies look very similar. When you get to know the best in the hobby they would not presume to be able to diagnose deficiencies from pictures. And deficiencies could also be deficiencies of light, CO2, too much shading, too much crowding, poor maintenance, etc.

Just saying there are lots of ways to make a plant do poorly, and if you can pinpoint a nutrient deficiency from a picture then you are a better man than me, or anybody that I know in the hobby.
 
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So question still applies.
If you cant tell a deficiency by looks or test kit how are you supposed to know?

Neither will tell you precisely the deficiency, but both can be used to narrow it down, and combined with what you know you are putting in the tank, will help you fix it more easily by trial and error.

I'm not quite as against test kits as many on this forum, but I recognise them for the blunt instrument they are, and use them occasionally within those limitations. For example I wouldn't use an iron test kit to tell me exactly how much iron I have in the water column, but I'm happy to accept that it can tell me if I have a lot, a little, or none. You should be able to calculate exactly how much iron you are dosing, so that is your starting point. If your test kit is telling you that you have zero iron at some point in the week, and returns a non-zero result earlier in the week, then I think that enough to work initially on the basis of an iron availability issue to start with.

Breaking down the other information you've provided, you say:

use an automatic doser to dose daily

but then say

Probably gonna get slated but i use a test kit, goes from 1.6 after dosing on a sunday to 0 in about 6 days.

Which is quite a lot to dose as others have pointed out, but also suggests if you are going from 0 - 'a lot' you are dosing all your micros on one day? So are you dosing micros daily or weekly?

If weekly, then as I'm guessing you live in a hard water area, it could well be as @dw1305 points out:

those ions forming insoluble compounds and precipitating out of solution.

The solution may be to try DTPA chelated iron that remains in the water column for longer in hard higher pH water, and to dose micros daily.

What other dry salts are you using, and what recipe? hat time of day do you dose?
 
Hi all,
If you cant tell a deficiency by looks or test kit how are you supposed to know?
I think you can use <"the appearance"> and <"growth"> of the plant. It isn't perfect, but a <"floating plant"> takes CO2 and light out of the equation.
I use test kits as a guide not a pinpoint accurate measurement, I come from the reefing world where testing is key.
A marine reef is a much more <"black and white scenario"> where you are dealing with a <"much more consistent">, alkaline (and salty) medium.
It is <"slightly different with sea water">, you have <"known datum values"> to aim for in a much denser, saltier liquid. The increased density of sea water allows you to use a "protein skimmer" and you the <"ionic content of the water"> allows you to use a hygrometer or refractometer to measure salinity. For many parameters there are a very small range of values which are "good" and everything else is sub-optimal. It is a <"very black and white world">, compared to freshwater, where everything is <"shades of grey">.
One of the issues with freshwater is that the <"Rio Negro is very different from Lake Tanganyika">.

cheers Darrel
 
A marine reef is a much more <"black and white scenario"> where you are dealing with a <"much more consistent">, alkaline (and salty) medium.
It still uses test kits. If they are good enough for a reef tank, why do you say they are no good for freshwater?
Alot of test kits are used for both salt and fresh, yet apparently useless for fresh but acceptable for salt. I think its about time people stopped telling everybody that test kits are no good and useless.
I think the majority of test kits are consistent rather than accurate which is what i am after, I dont care if my nitrates are showing as 40ppm when in actual fact it is 30ppm as long as the test kit always shows that consistency.
 
Neither will tell you precisely the deficiency, but both can be used to narrow it down, and combined with what you know you are putting in the tank, will help you fix it more easily by trial and error.

I'm not quite as against test kits as many on this forum, but I recognise them for the blunt instrument they are, and use them occasionally within those limitations. For example I wouldn't use an iron test kit to tell me exactly how much iron I have in the water column, but I'm happy to accept that it can tell me if I have a lot, a little, or none. You should be able to calculate exactly how much iron you are dosing, so that is your starting point. If your test kit is telling you that you have zero iron at some point in the week, and returns a non-zero result earlier in the week, then I think that enough to work initially on the basis of an iron availability issue to start with.

Breaking down the other information you've provided, you say:



but then say



Which is quite a lot to dose as others have pointed out, but also suggests if you are going from 0 - 'a lot' you are dosing all your micros on one day? So are you dosing micros daily or weekly?

If weekly, then as I'm guessing you live in a hard water area, it could well be as @dw1305 points out:



The solution may be to try DTPA chelated iron that remains in the water column for longer in hard higher pH water, and to dose micros daily.

What other dry salts are you using, and what recipe? hat time of day do you dose?
I use the ei dosing method using APFUK ferts and trace mix, dosed on alternate days with 50% water change on a Sunday.
I test once a week on a Sunday before i water change and test again Sunday afternoon. My iron is always 0 when i test Sunday Morning before a water change.
The doser doses at 11am and lights come on at 12.30 til 18.30.
 
Hi all,
It still uses test kits. If they are good enough for a reef tank, why do you say they are no good for freshwater?
You have known datum values and a much saltier, denser medium, they aren't always comparable.
Alot of test kits are used for both salt and fresh, yet apparently useless for fresh but acceptable for salt. I think its about time people stopped telling everybody that test kits are no good and useless.
I'd recommend that every-one does <"whatever they feel happiest with">.

<"I'm not anti-testing">, I'd really like to know <"the water parameters for my tank">. Also if you have access to a <"professional grade analytical lab">? I'd recommend using them.

Personally I'm going to carry on using (and recommending):
  • conductivity meters,
and with certain proviso's,
Other than those I'm going to recommend <"inferential techniques, risk management and probability">, because I'm personally convinced that they have a greater chance of success.

cheers Darrel
 
I use the ei dosing method using APFUK ferts and trace mix, dosed on alternate days with 50% water change on a Sunday.
I test once a week on a Sunday before i water change and test again Sunday afternoon. My iron is always 0 when i test Sunday Morning before a water change.
The doser doses at 11am and lights come on at 12.30 til 18.30.

OK, so how much are you dosing and what is the tank volume, and are you using the standard APFUK mixing instructions (i.e. 1tsp of trace mix per 500ml of water) or something else? Also, are you injecting CO2?
 
OK, so how much are you dosing and what is the tank volume, and are you using the standard APFUK mixing instructions (i.e. 1tsp of trace mix per 500ml of water) or something else? Also, are you injecting CO2?
Using the instructions that came with the apfuk starter kit as that is what most people recommended, no co2 or l/c, all details are in my tank thread.
 
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