After spending years in saltwater and mostly SPS tanks I decided 6months ago to move over to fresh. I had thriving SPS tanks, and spent considerable amounts of down dialing in dosing and nutrient levels to the point I could set up a tank in a plastic bucket. I'm got to the point I can look at SPS corals in somebody's tank and tell by node shape what their pH levels are.
I thought freshwater planted would be easier and get me out of testing hell, but it's not. I set up a 20L a few months ago, and went full CO2. Initially I had fantastic growth from stem feeders, and then everything slowed down. Blindly dosing ferts fixed the issue to a point, but then resulted in horrendous algae. Cut back all the plants and started slower, and armed myself with testing kits. We gonna do this right this time - just like learning SPS.
What I've narrowed down the problem to (I think) is iron. Alternanthera refused to grown in my tank and even frogbit rolled over and died. Nitrate and Phosphate are fine, but I just recently started testing for iron with a Seachem kit and it was '0'. Added some Seachem Iron and within days saw immediate improvement in Alternanthera and Frogbit. The problem is all we all know iron gluconate is very unstable, and there are pages of threads on the topic of what form of iron people use.
At this point I'm confused as to the best way to proceed, other than keep dosing iron gluconate, but on a daily basis at low levels. That's fine...if it's what I got to do.
What I don't get is how some people can have massive planted tanks, don't dose iron and have no issues. Is there some magical Iron fairy that comes at night and doses their tank?
I thought freshwater planted would be easier and get me out of testing hell, but it's not. I set up a 20L a few months ago, and went full CO2. Initially I had fantastic growth from stem feeders, and then everything slowed down. Blindly dosing ferts fixed the issue to a point, but then resulted in horrendous algae. Cut back all the plants and started slower, and armed myself with testing kits. We gonna do this right this time - just like learning SPS.
What I've narrowed down the problem to (I think) is iron. Alternanthera refused to grown in my tank and even frogbit rolled over and died. Nitrate and Phosphate are fine, but I just recently started testing for iron with a Seachem kit and it was '0'. Added some Seachem Iron and within days saw immediate improvement in Alternanthera and Frogbit. The problem is all we all know iron gluconate is very unstable, and there are pages of threads on the topic of what form of iron people use.
At this point I'm confused as to the best way to proceed, other than keep dosing iron gluconate, but on a daily basis at low levels. That's fine...if it's what I got to do.
What I don't get is how some people can have massive planted tanks, don't dose iron and have no issues. Is there some magical Iron fairy that comes at night and doses their tank?