Iron Levels (Light vs Moderate vs Heavy)

[Tyger]

Greetings,

I have a quick question. When reading plant profiles, I tends to see descriptions that outline Nitrate and Phosphate levels in ppm though most plant profiles describe the Iron dosing in terms such as light, dose, heavy, or double without reference to a numeric value. Nutrafin Fe Test (Free Iron & Chelated Iron) measures Fe within the range of 0.0 and 1.0 mg/l (ppm) and suggest the following guidelines:

• Free Iron (Fe)
  • 0.0-0.1 mg/l = Ideal level
  • > 0.1 mg/l = Partial Water Change or Chelate Iron w/H2O Conditioner
• Chelated Iron
  • 0.0-0.25 mg/l = Iron level is low
  • 0.25-0.5 mg/ = Ideal level of iron in water
  • 0.5-1.0 mg/l = Too much iron is present - perform water change.

In the planted tank world... what do the relative terms - light, ideal, heavy, and double mean in these terms? Similarly, what is too much? Thanks, in advance,

~Tyger (Michael)~

 

[Tom Barr]

One of the few studies on Fe and dosing vs growth rates suggest for Hydrilla, 6.0ppm was optimal for Fe.
The max uptake of Fe occurred at 8.0ppm however, but this did not increase rates of growth however.

Without good CO2/light and independent variables other than Fe......it' is hard to say what is good, but over all, the ranges are low, Med and high is accurate for us.........but I do not know what too much Fe is...and I'd never do a water change to remove so called excess. There's no evidence that there is such a thing as too much Fe from everything I've seen and I've gone wild with dosing Traces over a very long time, never have I seen any correlation with anything negative.