# Iron deficiency?



## swackett (6 Jul 2017)

Have had the new setup running now for 2 months, and I am still seeing what I think maybe iron deficiency with new leaves looking transparent with yellowish tips.

I'm running a 100 litre tank with an eheim 350T filter (so about 10x flow).
Injected co2 on before lights and off before lights, with lights on for 6 hours

Currently using old dry salts to does EI with 30/40% Water change weekly.
Dosing the following

30ppm K
20ppm NO3
5ppm PO4
10ppm Mg
0.7ppm Fe (0.6ppm a week from TNC fe as it uses DTPA for our alkaline water)
Been reading a few other threads on here regarding water hardness and how this can effect macro and micro nutrients.  Added water company stats for my water, which are

pH - 7.5 to 7.8
79 - Calcium (mg/l) 
197 - Calcium Carbonate (mg/l) 
1.97 - Millimols
11.04 - Degrees German (°dH)
19.76 - French (°f)
13.80 °Clark (or °e)
Nitrate - 32.3 mg/l
Alkalinity 151 mg/l HCO3
Magnesium 2.9 mg/l Mg
Total Dissolved Solids 276 ppm (calculated based on conductivity measurement)
Just wondering if I could be overdosing, or have the ratio wrong as I'm now thinking should I try TNC complete for a while to see if that helps.

Any suggestion or assistance appreciated

Steve.


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## ian_m (6 Jul 2017)

Hope you are not adding Fe along with the other EI salts, as it will react with the phosphate to produce insoluble, plant unavailable, iron phosphate. You must dose the iron on separate days to the rest of the ferts.

Ignore you water company figures, many many many many (did I say many) people that change their dosing based on water company report and then run into plant issues. Main one people fail to dose is Mg as they feel that Mg in their water is sufficient. This water report is not your tap water, not your tap water today, is the companies sampling point, measured when ???? so basically ignore(ish) it, other than your water is hard. So hard water, use it live with it, plants (and fish) don't generally care.


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## swackett (6 Jul 2017)

We dose iron alongside Tropica Premium on Monday and Wednesday, and dose the rest on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.   The water seems to tint yellow by the end of the week, not sure if this is caused by the iron not breaking down properly?

Are the levels I'm dosing correct.   I am seeing GSA on some of the larger anubias leaves, which I read was PO4 deficiency which is why that is 5ppm


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## zozo (6 Jul 2017)

As far what i found out, Nitrate is an element the water company should monitor and report regularly, in my country Nitrate (and hardness) are the only figures reported on the water company website by default. It seems >10ppm concentrations of Nitrate in tap water can cause Blue Baby syndrome in infants. (Something like Oxygene transport deficiency). So parents can look up per region if it is advisable to use bottled water for their infants instead...
I'm not sure but i can imagine this is a global regulation to report acurate Nitrate contents in drinking water.

I live in such a region, according the water company  have <25 ppm N from the tap, rather can expect it higher than lower.. Meanwhile the JBL N test, if i'm not color blind shows <10ppm. Than if i add 10 ppm extra and test it again the test goes throught he roof and shows +/- 50 ppm. So complete crap test..


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## Daveslaney (6 Jul 2017)

I dose macros and micros on the same day every day. One hour apart and have never had a problem with perticipation of iron or phosphate. I think the dilution factor of the tank water to fert ratio plays a part. Not saying it dosnt happen just never experianced it personally.
You could try dosing seachem iron, The iron source in this is from ferrous glutonate and is said to be a more avalable iron source for the plants.


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## zozo (6 Jul 2017)

There is a relation in pH and Iron solubility.. Above pH 8.5 this can become a problem regarding plant deficiencies. If you get pH 7.9 from the tap than likely it will be around pH 8,5 in the tank during top of the light cycle.. If this is a garanty for iron deficiency i do not know.. Without adding co2 plant choices will be rather limited anyway in such alkaline low energy invironments. It likely will also depend on plant sp. not all are equaly depended on iron, some sp. like it more than others.

*The Relationship Between Iron and pH*


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## swackett (6 Jul 2017)

Daveslaney said:


> I dose macros and micros on the same day every day. One hour apart and have never had a problem with perticipation of iron or phosphate. I think the dilution factor of the tank water to fert ratio plays a part. Not saying it dosnt happen just never experianced it personally.
> You could try dosing seachem iron, The iron source in this is from ferrous glutonate and is said to be a more avalable iron source for the plants.



I read that as we have alkaline water (pH > 7) the chelating agent used in Seachem iron (EDTA) breaks down in water with pH over 7


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## swackett (6 Jul 2017)

zozo said:


> There is a relation in pH and Iron solubility.. Above pH 8.5 this can become a problem regarding plant deficiencies. If you get pH 7.9 from the tap than likely it will be around pH 8,5 in the tank during top of the light cycle.. If this is a garanty for iron deficiency i do not know.. Without adding co2 plant choices will be rather limited anyway in such alkaline low energy invironments. It likely will also depend on plant sp. not all are equaly depended on iron, some sp. like it more than others.
> 
> *The Relationship Between Iron and pH*



Our pH out of the tap is about 7.2 to 7.4, after 24 hours its 8.2 to 8.4.  Measured during lighting period with injected co2 its 6.9 to 7.0


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## Daveslaney (6 Jul 2017)

There is no chelates in seachem iron it uses ferrous glutanate. It is said to be a better source for foliar feeding iron to plants. As there is not chelates to break down.
As iron is immobile in plants you will only see a improvement in the new leafs on your plants if you have iron deficiency.


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## swackett (6 Jul 2017)

well


Daveslaney said:


> There is no chelates in seachem iron it uses ferrous glutanate. It is said to be a better source for foliar feeding iron to plants. As there is not chelates to break down.
> As iron is immobile in plants you will only see a improvement in the new leafs on your plants if you have iron deficiency.



Well the issue is with new leaves, also the old ones break down and die, the leaves on the effected plants just look more yellow than green


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## dw1305 (6 Jul 2017)

Hi all,





Daveslaney said:


> There is no chelates in seachem iron it uses ferrous glutanate. It is said to be a better source for foliar feeding iron to plants. As there is not chelates to break down.
> As iron is immobile in plants you will only see a improvement in the new leafs on your plants if you have iron deficiency.


You use a complexor/chelator because if you add the iron as ions (Fe++(+)), via iron sulphate (FeSO4·7H2O) etc., it will form insoluble compounds almost instantly. 

The iron ions react with bases in solution (e.g. carbonate, phosphate, citrate, oxalate, acetate or hydroxide ions) to form insoluble compounds that make the iron unavailable to our plants (they can only take up ions).

If you use gluconate, or citric acid, to complex your iron, it is less strongly bound than if it was chelated, so is more available to the plant but will precipitate out of solution more quickly. 

I don't have a price to hand, but I would imagine that ferrous gluconate is a lot cheaper to buy than Fe EDTA, and EDTA is cheaper than the other chelators (Fe DTPA, Fe EDDHA).

There is a proper discussion in <"the Krib:iron gluconate">.

cheers Darrel


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## swackett (6 Jul 2017)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all,You use a complexor/chelator because if you add the iron as ions (Fe++(+)), via iron sulphate (FeSO4·7H2O) etc., it will form insoluble compounds almost instantly.
> 
> The iron ions react with bases in solution (e.g. carbonate, phosphate, citrate, oxalate, acetate or hydroxide ions) to form insoluble compounds that make the iron unavailable to our plants (they can only take up ions).
> 
> ...



We are now using TNC Fe which uses DTPA, should this be sufficient in our water?  Thing is I am still seeing transparent new leaves on some plants, which I believe is an Iron issue, or do I have this all wrong?


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## Daveslaney (6 Jul 2017)

Thanks Darrel. Most I have seen for sale is used in health supplements for human consumption. 
But read that seachem use it in there flourish iron formula too.
Magnesium can also limit your plants micro uptake. Epsom salts is cheap so 2 or 3 tsp of this in the water changes would do no harm too?.


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## swackett (6 Jul 2017)

Daveslaney said:


> Thanks Darrel. Most I have seen for sale is used in health supplements for human consumption.
> But read that seachem use it in there flourish iron formula too.
> Magnesium can also limit your plants micro uptake. Epsom salts is cheap so 2 or 3 tsp of this in the water changes would do no harm too?.



We are dosing 10ppm of MgSO4 a week


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## dw1305 (6 Jul 2017)

Hi all, 





swackett said:


> We are now using TNC Fe which uses DTPA, should this be sufficient in our water? Thing is I am still seeing transparent new leaves on some plants, which I believe is an Iron issue, or do I have this all wrong?


FeDTPA should supply enough iron. 

Deficiencies that effect new leaves are caused by non-mobile elements, and iron is the most likely of these. 

cheers Darrel


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## swackett (6 Jul 2017)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all, FeDTPA should supply enough iron.
> 
> Deficiencies that effect new leaves are caused by non-mobile elements, and iron is the most likely of these.
> 
> cheers Darrel



Ta, so we should be putting in more than 0.7ppm a week?  Any suggestions or should I just up it to 1ppm a week and see?

Can you put in too much fe?


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## dw1305 (6 Jul 2017)

Hi all,





swackett said:


> Ta, so we should be putting in more than 0.7ppm a week? Any suggestions or should I just up it to 1ppm a week and see? Can you put in too much fe?


 I'd try 1ppm per week, it isn't going to any harm.

Iron is toxic at high levels (~50ppm), but usually micro-element problems are caused by the <"ratio of one nutrient to another">. 

cheers Darrel


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## jaypeecee (26 Oct 2019)

ian_m said:


> Ignore you water company figures, many many many many (did I say many) people that change their dosing based on water company report and then run into plant issues. Main one people fail to dose is Mg as they feel that Mg in their water is sufficient. This water report is not your tap water, not your tap water today, is the companies sampling point, measured when ???? so basically ignore(ish) it, other than your water is hard.



Hi Ian,

You are saying that the water company's water report is worthless - other than for hardness. If that's the case, then a lot of people are being seriously misled. I'm not saying that you're wrong but I'd like to know more. I can see why some figures, e.g. for lead and copper, may be different from a domestic tap rather than from a water company's sampling point.

JPC


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