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Iron and phosphate questions

Matti

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Hi!
As I have some red plants, so I added for the first time some EasyIron. And the effect was almost immediate on the Alcanthere reineckii. But I have a have a suspicion that my BBA problem also seem to benefit of the extra iron? Any comments?

The other question is about testing phosphates. Even if I add double the doze of Seachem phosphate, I just don't get any reaction with the test. There must be phosphates in the tank, why are they not showing in the test.

I have a planted Dennerle 55, basic fert routine 3 pumps a week Tropica premium, Phosphate test Macherey-Nagel

Matti
 
Hi!
As I have some red plants, so I added for the first time some EasyIron. And the effect was almost immediate on the Alcanthere reineckii. But I have a have a suspicion that my BBA problem also seem to benefit of the extra iron? Any comments?
Hi @Matti Are you injecting CO2 ? Either way, Algae problems are almost exclusively associated with unbalanced CO2, light intensity and flow/circulation. and not because of too much fertilizer - including iron. It actually sounds to me that your not adding enough fertilizer which will make the plants struggle and become algae magnets - 6 ml / week for 55L of mostly trace elements is not nearly enough for a planted tank - you need a consistent dose of what matters the most as well, which is NPK.

For more help, you should provide more info about your tank and a picture is always helpful.

The other question is about testing phosphates. Even if I add double the doze of Seachem phosphate, I just don't get any reaction with the test. There must be phosphates in the tank, why are they not showing in the test.

I have a planted Dennerle 55, basic fert routine 3 pumps a week Tropica premium, Phosphate test Macherey-Nagel
I am not familiar with the Macherey-Nagel phosphate test. I only know the API one and it always maxes out on the scale in my case (>10 ppm) pretty consistent with the large amount of phosphate I'm adding weekly. If you dose phosphate, its there, but if you come from very low levels, as it sounds like, it might be that the plants are sucking it up like crazy and that is why you don't get much of a reading from the test. Also keep in mind that the double dose will only add 2 x 0.15 mg/L or 0.30 mg/L per application which is not a whole lot to begin with - and your not getting any phosphate from Tropica premium (unlike Specialized which contains a bit of NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potassium)).



Cheers,
Michael
 
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Hi,
gave wrong info, it's Tropica Specialized I'm dosing, so it should have some phosphates. I have only shrimps in the tank, so no extra phosphates from fish food. But still, if I dose 3 pumps a week Tropica and double amount of Seachem, and still nothing on the test? I'm just afraid of a sudden algae explosion if I keep adding even more.

And yes, I have CO2.

Matti
 
Algae thrives when the ferts are in the parts per Billion, so there is always plenty for them, when we dose at levels needed for plants we are trying to give plants the advantage, hence when injecting CO2 is is best to dose the ferts in abundance
Test kits, I have never tested for phosphates for the reasons in link.
1630349698321.png

As you can see TSN has 10% the fert level of PO4 compared to EI dosing.

Some folk use TNC complete and to dose it at EI levels folk use a double - triple dose so x6
1630349926596.png


However I would not advise dosing TSN x6 standard dose as its Nitrogen source is an Ammonium based salt, where as TNC complete is a Nitrated based fert so safe to dose at those levels
 
Last edited:
Hi,
gave wrong info, it's Tropica Specialized I'm dosing, so it should have some phosphates. I have only shrimps in the tank, so no extra phosphates from fish food. But still, if I dose 3 pumps a week Tropica and double amount of Seachem, and still nothing on the test? I'm just afraid of a sudden algae explosion if I keep adding even more.

And yes, I have CO2.

Matti
Hi @Matti can you post a full picture of the tank? So we can see the plant mass, drop checker etc. I have zero experience with CO2, but I am sure the CO2 experts will evaluate the situation with more info.

Also, just for reference, back in the day when I was dosing commercial aquatic fertilizers in my 2 heavily planted non-CO2 151L tanks, I was dosing 26/ml of Specialized twice a week (52ml/wk - thats almost 3 times the amount of Specialized per week that your doing relative to tank size) + I added Seachem Nitrogen and Phosphate twice per week separately as well (I didn't do Potassium because my tap water is very potassium rich) and all that was for a low-energy tank, with CO2 I would have easily tripled that amount. Which is almost to say, since you're injecting CO2, that that you need to add almost ten times the amount of fertilization (NPK) per week as @Zeus. shows above.

Cheers,
Michael
 
@Mattiare you using Seachem Iron along with Tropica? I have always found a link between Iron gluconate and BBA quite often. It's usually more severe if leaves were already damaged to begin with and if you are pumping way too much co2 on top of that. Tropica alone provide sufficient amount of Fe, I don't see the reason to add more.

If people are seeing Fe deficiency while dosing Fe, that mean few other things are not correct, it could be low lights, low overall nutrients or something missing, prectipations of some nutrients etc. I would start with the basics to make sure we have decent amount of Ca around 24 ppm, Mg around 8, K around 10 ppm and then Fe/Traces. I would also invest in strong lighting, most people are still trying to achieve red plants with 1 ppm Fe which is completely wrong, they should rather look into the lights at that point. But you must meet the basic needs of the plants, Mg plays quite a major role in plant coloration which people seems to ignore, Fe and Mn would only work well if Mg is present to begin with.
 
Hi,
here's my tank. It's hard to say for sure, but I think the reds got a deeper tone after adding Fe. I'm trying to find a simple fert routine, it seems that my 3 pumps Tropica has not been enough. At least I had a clear potassium deficiency which is now fixed. I will skip the extra Fe and see what happens.




IMG_4374.jpeg
 
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