The Custom Micro Mix Thread

When I first started with the intention of cloning csmb at the same dose I was using then, 1 Lb of Mo was going to last.... 28,000 years!

The math was double checked, its in my journal somewhere

 

Anybody using Purigen? I know Greggz does, already told him about this. Here's what happened a couple weeks ago

The 120 has two canisters, each one has about 250 ml of Purigen inside. The bags are swapped out for fresh ones whenever I take one apart for cleaning.

So a couple of weeks ago, all of a sudden one day pantanal tops had gone pale with bright cherry red centers, clear sign it wasnt happy. Also mini limno, and something else too I dont remember.

Well nothing had changed in a few weeks (except for adding nickel which I'll get to later) and everything was crusing along very well with daily dosing of a .2 Fe blend.

Checked CO2, all good, racking my brain at this point, the only thing that's changed recently is I cleaned the Hydor two days ago and that certainly didnt do anyth......wait, the new bag of Purigen??

Ive always read it wasnt supposed to affect micros. Searched the Seachem forum, their official stance is "should have minimal impact"

Found some discussion on other boards with mixed opinions. A few folks were emphatic their plants did better without, the majority seem to dismiss the notion.

So anyway I removed the Purigen from every single filter, they all had it.

And lo and behold 2-3 days later the Pantanal and everything else was looking fine again. So...I believe it does have at least some impact, maybe on just a thing or two, and maybe unchelated makes a difference. IDK, just reporting what happened.

Update on the nickel. I'd started adding it to the micros about a week earlier. Couldnt really tell a significant difference but everything was growing really well.

Current recipe in ppb, dosing daily

Fe DTPA - 200
Mn - 90
B - 32
Zn -75
Mo - 1.3
Cu - zero
Ni - .5

Since removing the Purigen these last couple of weeks everything has really kicked up a notch. No issues to speak of with anything.

So either the Ni is soaking in making a big difference, or the Purigen, at least when brand new, was having a negative effect.

tifwiw

 

Well they're selling Prime too which definitely interacts with unchelated micros

Isnt B an anion?

Deanna on TPT speculated that it might be interacting with the urea Im dosing.

Either way this is very interesting. I really have no idea what happened or why, just sharing the experience. But I will say the negative response was pretty dramatic, and sudden for no apparent reason. Seems a strange coincidence to happen 2-3 days after a new bag of Purigen. Not only that, but also for the symptoms to disappears over the next few days after removing it.

For the time being Im going to eliminate Purigen from the equation, because it's just one more unknown factor that might possibly be influencing things, however unlikely. Later on after some time has passed I'll re-introduce it and see if the result repeats.

 

Very interesting!

I also use Purigen bags in all my filters.

I just changed the filter floss in my Hydor on Sunday and ended up removing the Purigen bag in the process, one because it was dirty and spent, two because of all the fines floating around the tank I wanted to add a second tray of filter floss. Normally like most I throw a regenerated bag back in the filter, but I was lazy last filter change day and didn't regenerate my spares. I will be changing filter floss again on the weekend and will add a regenerated bag back into the filter and watch closely to see if it has any effect on the tank.

Like most people and what Seachem wants you to believe, I was under the impression that Purigen has minimal to no effect on your micros.

 

You're right that seems the most likely thing to have happened....on paper at least. Especially since a good bit of my N/NO3 comes from urea.

However, my NO3 levels are always off the charts. The latest test I had done using Hanna photometer showed 51 ppm, this was only a couple months ago at basically the same macro dosing.

So it seems unlikely that Purigen would've caused a big shortage in just a few days. Unless maybe it was zapping all the urea, and because the plants are adapted to having that particular source available it threw them out of whack for a minute.

This is very interesting, I was not aware but now it sounds quite possible.

Surely it couldnt pull it from the plants, but I do find it hard to keep Fe levels up in the water column, and to avoid Fe deficiency symptoms in certain plants. Not all plants, just a handful of "usual suspects" that will quickly go south if Fe gets low

Another interesting result from the recent Hanna test I mentioned, Fe levels in the water column at the end of a week's dosing were .051 ppm. I would have to go back and look exactly what I was dosing, but it was somewhere close to 1 ppm total for the week, all dtpa. So either the plants were using one helluva lot or something else was happening to it

 

But, I think your tank is sucking Fe disproportionally indeed. I measured Fe in my tank before the last water change, and I measured 1.4 ppm (!!), and as you know, I was dosing less than you (with the exception I perform 50-60% WC every 2 weeks)... After 60% WC, I measured again and Fe was 0.7 ppm? I also use a Hanna photometer. So, clearly Fe accumulates in my tank. I use Prime after WC, but I don't use Purigen... I will give more details this weekend, as soon as I have completed my first week of super-crazy-high micro dosing

 

@burr740, I think your tank is sucking Fe disproportionally indeed. I measured Fe in my tank before the last water change, and I measured 1.4 ppm (!!), and as you know, I was dosing less than you (with the exception I perform 50-60% WC every 2 weeks)... After 60% WC, I measured again and Fe was 0.7 ppm? I also use a Hanna photometer. So, clearly Fe accumulates in my tank. I use Prime after WC, but I don't use Purigen... I will give more details this weekend, as soon as I have completed my first week of super-crazy-high micro dosing

 

I'd love to but the hanna is not mine, have to send it off to a guy. May can still work it out though, what is the proposed experiment?

And I can see it now, gonna wind up buying one of those damn things....

 

Ah, I see (even though most of that went way over my head )

Yeah that's not gonna happen on my end. I have to pay the guy for each individual test, and besides that, I'd need to see this type of thing for myself before trusting the results really

 

DTPA Fe will accumulate, ETDA, not so much, nor Fe Gluconate. I think it persisted for a few weeks(at least two) when we used a test kit some decades ago now, maybe mid 1990's. The issue then was the left over chelators potentially binding other nutrients.
We used this one then:
https://www.hach.com/iron-color-disc-test-kit-model-ir-21/product-details?id=7640216697

If you want to get into this more and really test and make your own:
https://books.google.com/books?id=bwQ5DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=Standard+methods+DTPA+Fe&source=bl&ots=Hl1wIUS56B&sig=U_u59w7GIpm1_jpk98Tw7aZvynw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmmO6Gnc_YAhUG82MKHZkACh0Q6AEITDAF#v=onepage&q=Standard%20methods%20DTPA%20Fe&f=false

Read some of the sample methods for the Fe iron packets and the time frames they use for the sampling test. Allowing more time is not part of the methods in most phenanthroline reactions.
Bottom of the page, Hach uses this method and states 3 minutes. Not whatever you feel like.........
https://www.hach.com/pocket-colorimeter-ii-iron-ferrover/product-downloads?id=7640445233

If you want 1 ppb resolution, then the TPTZ Reagent method might be a better solution, it's good from about 1-400 ppb. This uses a 30 sec reaction sample time.
Hanna's low range Iron kit uses this method, their high range uses the phenanthroline. They use the same time for measurement using the the high range reagent: 3 minutes.

See pg 67-68
https://hannainst.com/downloads/dl/file/id/1168/man83200_18_04_12.pdf

If you want to deviate from this, fine....those are standard methods for a reason.......but now you are looking for conclusions 1st, then finding data that supports it.
That's not how things are done. You need standards in your methods.

You should run a reference sample also, an upper and lower to assess the test methods accuracy..........using your tank water and add say 0.10 ppm, 0.100 ppm and 1.0 ppm. Make your standard curve.


Now from here, you can dry the plant materials and see how much Fe is actually in the tissue, plant trace metal analysis is not that costly.
So you have the water's content of Fe and the plant's tissue content, showing it actually got into the plant.

Then you measure wet/dry weights or measure stem length etc.