Dosing Extra Iron??

rs18alpha

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When talking about plants that need a lot of Iron to grow well, I keep hearing that you need to dose extra iron. How do I do this?
Can I use Laterite Clay capsules at the base of each plant?

Or should I use Iron Chelate 11% DTPA in the water column?

What do you think??
 

rs18alpha

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Thanks Phishless I appreciate the help. 2 questions:
Should I add this on the same day I dose Mics?
What's my ppm target for a 150liter tank?
 

Phishless

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Same day as micros for sure.

I target the water column and try to keep between .3 - .6 ppm.
I've kind of determined my tank uses almost .1ppm per day.

Per dose would be up to you.
 

tiger15

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You don’t need to dose extra iron, just more frequently as iron precipitate out of the solution quickly
 

rs18alpha

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I dosing .6ppm fe per week from csm+b I want to mix the DTPA in 250 mil bottle. But I don't know how much to mix and how much each dose would be?
 

rajkm

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I dosing .6ppm fe per week from csm+b I want to mix the DTPA in 250 mil bottle. But I don't know how much to mix and how much each dose would be?

0.6 is usually more than enough for most. Unless you are running very high light, you should be fine.
CSMB has EDTA as chelate, which is only effective between certain PH. So if your water is harder the DTPA might help.

Is there a specific plant or specific issue you are trying to fix?
 

rs18alpha

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No, I just wanted to know how to increase the iron if I ever tried to grow plants that need a lot of iron.
I'll have to check my hardness. What is considered hard water?
 
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rajkm

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No, I just wanted to know how to increase the iron if I ever tried to grow plants that need a lot of iron.
I'll have to check my hardness. What is considered hard water?

Well as far as chelates go, the value that matters is PH. With EDTA (chelate used in CSMB) if you water PH goes over 7, EDTA starts to dissociate from iron. Above 7.5 pH almost 60% of Fe has disassociated form the chelate and by 8 pH 75% is unbound and so on.

I can tell you, at 1.2ppm Fe weekly, I am definitely overdosing iron, and I have very high light. Standard EI level Fe (0.6ppm weekly) work for most.
 

rs18alpha

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Thanks rajkm. Someone mentioned to increase dosing mics more often. I wonder if I could experiment dosing mics every day?
 
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