Iron

bikerdude

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Can iron at a level of .5 be depleated within a 24 hour period by the plant mass. Planted semi heavy in 175 gal
 

Biollante

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Biollante;45578 said:
Hi,

Yes.

Biollante

I should have added that I think it is unlikely given what I think I know of your situation. :)

The TheKillHaa's is likely the better answer if indeed it is gone. :)

I am not a fan of most home test kits and particularly not the home iron tests.:(

Best answer is do not bother testing dose for 2 or 3 ppm. I know you see a lot of 0.1 ppm stuff, do not sweat it, you are not going to run into any iron toxicity issues. :rolleyes: Tom Barr has gone 200+ ppm :eek: with no ill effects.

Stop testing and dose.

Biollante
 

yme

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I don't know much about it.... but for example coralite (fropm the APC forum) adds to an ada-aquasoil tonina tank 1 mg/l iron every day.
the tank looks pretty oke to me..... (understatement)..

so if you think that you are in iron... add more :)

greets,,

yme
 
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Tom Barr

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I've added a lot of Fe in the past and still do, but you can eyeball the amounts to suit. As far as aquatic plants and Fe, Haller found 6ppm of Fe gave the maximal Fe dosing and the highest uptake rate was 8ppm of Fe for Hydrilla.
I do not think we need even 1/10th that amount for most systems however, but the 0.1ppm that Paul and Kevin suggested(1995/1996), and then PPS users by copying what PMDD did, is a joke.
Maintaining such a residual is also equally a joke.

Plants do very well with pulses of various trace nutrients.

While Paul and the PMDD crowd have long been adding 0.1ppm, I was growign rare nice plants that others had lots of trouble with.
Claus from Tropica looked at many SFBAAPS member's tanks and said they needed a lot more Traces who had been dosing the low 0.1ppm range.

Some tanks will look okay I suppose, but adding more does not do any harm anyone has ever been able to demonstrate, there' are plenty of myth makers out there that claim algae due to excess, but that's rubbish.
I've never been able to show correlation in nearly 15 years.

Not even a little bit.

So why not add more, say .5-.8ppm every other day or say .5ppm a day?
No one on line has ever show me a single article on aquatic plant Fe uptake(the Haller article I found myself)

I guess we can use dogma, fear, and old myths to support our Science, Art of testing and all that other buzz garbage word phrases that some folks suggest they employ to learn and uncover the mystries of aquarium plants.

Good grief.

I use a mix of CMS+B and DTPA Fe, and Fe gluconate in some Excel+water(prevents mold/bacteria break down like HCL does which can be used as well, always add HCL to the water say 5mls to 1 liter of water of pool acid acid (HCL generally), wait a few minutes, then add the trace mix after 5-10 minutes).
I use excel and soft low GH/KH tap, if you use/have hard water, use more DTPA and not Gluconate, and use the HCL.

Regards,
Tom Barr



Regards,
Tom Barr
 

yme

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ehm, tom?

I do not think we need even 1/10th that amount for most systems however, but the 0.1ppm that Paul and Kevin suggested(1995/1996), and then PPS users by copying what PMDD did, is a joke.

if you use EI and use TMG as trace elements only.... you add 0,1-0,2 mg/l iron per WEEK!!!

can you explain?

I remember that you told me that if I use EI based TMG addition, I most likely do not need extra iron. I know that there is a lot of luxury uptake.... but the difference between 0,2 mg/l/week and the suggestion of adding 0,5 mg/l/day is imho extreme.

greets

yme

maybe I should start to dose 0,5 mg/l/day instead of trying to use h2o2
 

jonny_ftm

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I second yme on this,

I also asked many times on this iron issue with TPN (aka TMG). I always were answered that I shouldn't care. So, I never cared and like I was told, I never had issues. So yes, probably no need to add extra iron in TPN. Then, why should we dose more? TPN costs are high, sparing it works as good as when wasting it.

Now, with CSM+B, chelate is not the same, thus adding DTPA. But even in that case, a very little dosing should be enough I imagine

As for H2O2, if you're not too crowded with work and aquariums, getting rid of algae without algicids is much more rewarding in the long term.
 

Biollante

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yme;45671 said:
ehm, tom?



if you use EI and use TMG as trace elements only.... you add 0,1-0,2 mg/l iron per WEEK!!!

can you explain?

I remember that you told me that if I use EI based TMG addition, I most likely do not need extra iron. I know that there is a lot of luxury uptake.... but the difference between 0,2 mg/l/week and the suggestion of adding 0,5 mg/l/day is imho extreme.

greets

yme

maybe I should start to dose 0,5 mg/l/day instead of trying to use h2o2

Hi,

I had been a PMDD kind of evil plant monster for a long time, 10-12 years I think the 0.1 ppm iron thing just got ingrained in our psyches. For whatever reason, I started adding a dash-of-this and a pinch-of-that, the deficiencies simply became obvious. (No offense intended to those that do not think plants exhibit sign of nutrient deficiencies.)

I cannot believe the difference the increased iron has made to the look and propagation of my plants, most notably, for me anyway, the Echinodorus. (Moreover, the Ancistrus do not eat them.)

Yes, I think the extra iron is a good idea…:cool:

On the other thread, I’ll mention the H2O2. I see DaBub has weighed-in.

Biollante
 

detlef

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Even Amano doses higher Fe amounts in cases :). To counter colour losses he suggests Fe pulsing. If I remember correctly it is 2 drops of ECA in 5 liters on a daily basis until the problem resumes. Years ago I tested the Fe residual 15 minutes after I added the amount ADA was suggesting. I used a Dupla Fe kit and came up with 0,7ppm Fe. By the way I do not bite that higher Fe levels are of any help against whitening. Neither Tom does. But it demonstrates again higher Fe levels do not hurt if plant uptake is going strong nor does it harm shrimp in any way. BUT there are lots of questions regarding Fe levels in water: Does a certain level reflect the health status of a plant? What is the chemical procedure for Fe testing really showing up? etc etc

Regards, Detlef
 
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yme

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cool that all you guys jumped in :)

let's keep it a general discussion... not about my tank. I will give an
update this weekend or so.

but still... a 10 times difference is big. If more iron improves the way the plant looks, does that than mean that iron is becoming a limiting factor when you dose just TMG? if it is limiting, why does this not cause stunting? does it mean that the plants are less healthy with less iron? is it luxury uptake after all?

interesting stuff!

yme
 

Tom Barr

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Plants have internal ways to cope with limiting nutrients such as common ones like PO4 or Fe, but not for things like CO2 or N.
Some recycling and reworking can be done, but much less so for things like carbon, some species like Hydrilla snd Egeria are good with CO2 via HCO3, but most all plants cna tolrant PO4 limitations fairly well, jujst slows growht rates down without affecting the look or other aesthetics.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

Biollante

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detlef;45675 said:
Even Amano doses higher Fe amounts in cases :). To counter colour losses he suggests Fe pulsing. If I remember correctly it is 2 drops of ECA in 5 liters on a daily basis until the problem resumes. Years ago I tested the Fe residual 15 minutes after I added the amount ADA was suggesting. I used a Dupla Fe kit and came up with 0,7ppm Fe. By the way I do not bite that higher Fe levels are of any help against whitening. Neither Tom does. But it demonstrates again higher Fe levels do not hurt if plant uptake is going strong nor does it harm shrimp in any way. BUT there are lots of questions regarding Fe levels in water: Does a certain level reflect the health status of a plant? What is the chemical procedure for Fe testing really showing up? etc etc

Regards, Detlef

Hi Detlef,

I do not know if iron cures (or causes) whitening either, do not really care, what I noticed as I increased iron, was that my plants looked better, it seemed my Echinodorus spp., in particular were darker, heavier. The correlation seemed undeniable, though as they do say “correlation is not causation.” So the truth is I do not know. All I have to go by are results.:)

Likewise, I have noticed that Echinodorus spp. seem to like enriched substrates and seem to like the Osmocote Plus, though I do not think I have used it long enough to draw any conclusion, but the substrate with Osmocote Plus seem to have the happier Echinodorus spp. :)

Also to be fair until recently my iron dosing was almost exclusively via Plantex CSM+B, so it may not have been the iron. Iron is (was?) the proxy for micronutrients. Therefore, the results I am seeing may simply be an increase in other micronutrients having a desired effect. ;)

At the levels of iron I dose, I have seen no decrease in invertebrate populations. I inoculate most of my tanks, tubs and ponds with a variety of invertebrates.

As to the questions:
“Does a certain level reflect the health status of a plant? What is the chemical procedure for Fe testing really showing up? etc etc”

I will give you a resounding, absolute and definite, I don’t know. I think the most I can say is that when I provide an appropriate, reasonably well managed environment with non-limiting nutrients, the plants and critters in my care flourish. :) Yet the plants and critters are so adaptive that often they do pretty well even when my care is not as good as it should be. :eek:

Biollante
 

detlef

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Hi yme,
I think Tom answered your question right away. Regarding nutrient uptake we all know there are ranges, larger for one nutrient and narrower for others. Plus plants are tolerant, they are capable of luxury uptake and work around (recycling, slowing growth etc) if nutrients become limiting. Ranges for P, Fe and Ca seem to be wide whereas for micros such as B they seem small. But what does a "range" really mean for a plant and what is wide or narrow? It's pure human observation, measurement and interpretation of a life species we cannot communicate directly. Responses of plants are slow at times (for us humans) which makes things more difficult.
In others words a ten times difference for Fe might mean as much for a plant like for you drinking one or ten glasses of water. It's only a question of how often you must pee (sorry). What do we know for sure?????????

Regards, Detlef
 

jonny_ftm

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detlef;45692 said:
What do we know for sure?????????

What we know for sure is that plants do extermely well with TPN, so with very low Fe compared to CSM+B or DTPS addons.

So, like Tom said, some nutrients seem to be more limiting then others. If it only influence plant growth speed, I do opt for lower Fe. Pruning twice or once a week is no go for me. Now, if you prefer fast growth for quick eye catching competition tanks, you maybe should try 10x more than the micro dose of TPN
 

yme

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I think Tom answered your question right away.

yup, I think as well :)

I must say didn't know this. It also explains very well why P limitation in the old days, here in Holland, worked out very well.

follow-up question:

IF you assume that in an EI based tank you are not limited for CO2, P, N, Fe and light?.... can plants then be limited by a trace element for which there is no "back-up" mechanism? which then would results in stunting/problems?
deduced from this: would it be wise to increase TMG dosage together with iron dosage? or is it also just fine to increase iron dosage alone?

practically, as jonny_ftm pointed out, one can grow just perfectly grow healthy plants with TMG alone. Which would suggest that the answer to my questions would be: no.

greets,

yme
 

jonny_ftm

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Increasing TPN can help verify if it is a micro deficiency. But usually, following TPN dosage recommended in EI or the dosage above your tank size if high light and dense plants, then probably it will be CO2 or N as Tom says
 

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detlef;45692 said:
Hi yme,
I think Tom answered your question right away. Regarding nutrient uptake we all know there are ranges, larger for one nutrient and narrower for others. Plus plants are tolerant, they are capable of luxury uptake and work around (recycling, slowing growth etc) if nutrients become limiting. Ranges for P, Fe and Ca seem to be wide whereas for micros such as B they seem small. But what does a "range" really mean for a plant and what is wide or narrow? It's pure human observation, measurement and interpretation of a life species we cannot communicate directly. Responses of plants are slow at times (for us humans) which makes things more difficult.
In others words a ten times difference for Fe might mean as much for a plant like for you drinking one or ten glasses of water. It's only a question of how often you must pee (sorry). What do we know for sure?????????

Regards, Detlef

I think we do know that the excess amounts, say 0.5ppm, 1.0ppm, 2.0ppm ranges, and 5-8 ppm ranges have no adversed effects on plants.
I've yet to see a single study that shows that for ANY aquatic species, mostly the opposite, my aquariums also have been consistently unable to induce and repeat the on line Aquarium plant forum claims for what?
The last decade or more now.

While this do not detail the cause of their issues, it does refute the possibility that it's due to excess Fe, much like excess PO4 = algae.
This principole of falsification does not address what their cause might be, only that under other conditions , using a reference......a control...........Fe is not dependently capable of causing the stunted tips and other issues at excess concentrations, which I have listed unlike the typical claims from folks suggesting otherwise.
Adding more to this monkey business: hoagland solutions are generally used for fertigation, meaning that all the ornamental house plants, all the aquatic plant nurseries(they all use this method for horticulture), the typical ranges for Fe in these solutions which are much more concentrated than most aquarist's Fe levels: 1 to 5ppm of Fe.

While some might still believe PO4 causes algae, I think the same is true for Fe.
So having tested it, and looking up other comparable systems, the basis of falsification, I think we do KNOW what it is NOT causing the stunted tips of thread algae.
I would suggest several things cause both of those probelsm for aquarist, and that would be a better path to test more on and see if we can falsify but they are not Fe.

Without a control reference, without good measurements, without seeing if others also found this to be true(comparative differences among methods, can the method be repeated consistently??), you cannot know much, I agree.
But if you have those things you often do not know much at the end of the day, but you do know more and you generally know what it is not, having ruled out a few things.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

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jonny_ftm;45693 said:
What we know for sure is that plants do extermely well with TPN, so with very low Fe compared to CSM+B or DTPS addons.

So, like Tom said, some nutrients seem to be more limiting then others. If it only influence plant growth speed, I do opt for lower Fe. Pruning twice or once a week is no go for me. Now, if you prefer fast growth for quick eye catching competition tanks, you maybe should try 10x more than the micro dose of TPN

Agreed, but using less light and more Fe is a wiser approach to control plants growth and reducing labor along with wiser plant species selection.

In otherwords, the old school argument for limiting plants via nutrients, say Fe or PO4, which cycle fast, hard to measure and track at low levels(this is true for natural systems and why there's a lot of work done there), seesm like a very very poor management choice given that light drives everything.
In natural systems, there's no management choice for adjusting the light intensity or duration. We have that option and choice and it cost us more $ to run and initially buy for more light.

That is one reason why there's a disconnect between many aquarist and the research applications to this hobby.
It's is unfortunate many have and still go down this path.

TPN is not cheap also, so reducing it reduces cost, but CMS+B and DTPA mix resolves that issue.
If you like gluconate, I have a bunch I use for my soft water tanks.



Regards,
Tom Barr
 

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yme;45696 said:
yup, I think as well :)

I must say didn't know this. It also explains very well why P limitation in the old days, here in Holland, worked out very well.

follow-up question:

IF you assume that in an EI based tank you are not limited for CO2, P, N, Fe and light?.... can plants then be limited by a trace element for which there is no "back-up" mechanism? which then would results in stunting/problems?
deduced from this: would it be wise to increase TMG dosage together with iron dosage? or is it also just fine to increase iron dosage alone?

practically, as jonny_ftm pointed out, one can grow just perfectly grow healthy plants with TMG alone. Which would suggest that the answer to my questions would be: no.

greets,

yme

Liebig's law applies very well regarding limitation of growth, thus all the other non limiting nutrients and very importantly => the rates of growth.

What does Tropica do? I mean mostly? Grow aquatic plants commercially for sale to hobbyist in Europe.

How do they do this?

They use the same methods used by ornamental horticulturist.
In the winter, there's not much light, so they add extra artifically.

CO2?

They use the emergent growth and mist, plastic cover the wetland species.
No CO2 issues and no algae issues. Some pest management, but nothing too bad.

Nutrients? Most use fertigation and sand/bark media or rockwool as the case for Tropica.
Virtually all use this(95% or so), not just aquatic plant growers.

So the nutrients are sprayed directly on plants emergently and in much more concentrated forms than are typical for aquariums are used.
So Tropica dilutes these formulations down.

Many aquarist do not use CO2 or have high density planted tanks.
So dosing once a week is normal.

Traces came out initially since most had plenty of N, P from tap water and from fish waste etc.
The TPN+ with macros came out from a discussion I had with Claus some 12 years ago.
Likewise, Seachem's K+, N, P all are result of talking with Greg Morin.
PMDD came about from looking at Liebig's ideas and perhaps Gerloff's/Kromboltz(Paul who still post on AGA's web site here and there but use to help on the APD mailign list in the past)

Still, Given that the CO2 is independent with emergent growth, light etc, the ability as far as a method to demonstrate deficiencies, is the very used by hydroponics researchers, Hoagland himself etc.
So we can use the commercial growers own products, or make a similar one, Hoagland's etc hydroponically and emergently to answer such questions easily.As we add more complexity to things like CO2[aq], it becomes much more difficult to say as much and to set up a test that's repeatable.
Still, the method I suggested for hydroponics is the one used as a standard method to see about particularly nutrients in controlled study.

If someone has a simple effective way to ensure independence for CO2 and can show that adding these nutrients is going to cause an issue, I'd like to hear how they are makign sure CO2 is independent.
We know changing CO2 concentration can stunt tip growth in plants. We know that at the Fe concetrations in emergent growth(even 10x higher), this does not occur

This produces lots of doubt as to Fe and points more to issues with CO2.
I've been unable to demonstrate otherwise. Maybe someone else can, but I have to view it skepticism and curiosity.

I've poked around looking citations up that might be of use.
I've not found any for the concentrations we are interested in.

I think when adjusting traces, Fe is the biggest issue due to chelation being important, the others really do not need that.
Fine if they are chelated , but not a big deal.

Still, I think adjusting all the traces, not just Fe, seems wise when adding more.
But what about copper?

Shrimps? Copper is fine for plants at higher levels to about .4ppm or so.
That kills algae well, but some sensitive species of plants too.

So less copper if the other trace are raised, and richer copper ratios for leaner dosing.
Or where critters are concerned.

Fe is easy to add independently.

Still, for all the manipulation we do with NPKCaSO4Mg etc..........few do much to traces other than brand switching and Fe spiking.
Hard to test them also.

So many leave that one alone and unknown, is it significant?
I'm not sure. I do not know.

We do know that it works well for the plants we raise.
Could we get more out of the traces?
Perhaps, but for general use and for EI dosing, we have to make some assumptions which are fairly safe, I'd worry more about CO2 than EI given what we do know and have observed, seems much more likely to be an issue for most aquarist.

You can dose more than EI also if you think it is an issue and show that it does make a significant different.
I'm not sure it does and feel pretty good that its a non limiting nutrient reference.

But what do I know?
I could be wrong for some species.
But while easy to say, it's much harder to show that I am wrong.
No one has done that yet.

Regards,
Tom Barr