How quickly can I add Iron?

[Cityfish]

I started adding Iron to my tank on Monday. I Purchased a test kit and the flourish Iron supplement. My tank test 0. I double dosed on Monday. Tuesday I did a 30% water change and gave a single dose. Today(Wed) my tank still tests 0. Do I keep adding, or will I burn poor fish’s eyeballs dosing too fast?

[twig]

make sure your test kit is alright -.-

[Mgamer20o0]

i do not add iron yet. i didnt even know they made a iron test kit. my first thought is test it after you add it and make sure the test kit is working right.

[plah831]

how densely planted are you? could it be that your plants are using it up? if you use CO2 and high light, I would suspect that might be eating up your iron.

BTW, Mgamer2000, Seachem and Hagen both make an iron test. They're for salt/fresh water. Marine reef tanks have LOTS of things to test for (silicate, copper, strontrium, iodine, are some more).

[Cityfish]

I had extremely high wattage 4.5 w/per gal. I have reduced that to 3 watts per gallon. I have repeated the test carefully and competently. Is it possible the test is faulty? I do have a relatively well planted tank, aprox 65% coverage. No CO2 yet but hopefully within the week I’ll be infusing compressed gas.
How quickly should I add the Iron, to what level, and are there risks of over dosing plants or fish.

[plah831]

The recommended dosage is to add iron until you achieve a 0.1 mg/L (=0.1 ppm) reading (got that off the back of Flourish Iron bottle). I'm certainly not an expert on plant dosing, since I don't have the guts to even try EI (Estimative Index) dosing. Perhaps an expert doser who does EI could answer your questions about how fast and risks of overdosing.

[Mgamer20o0]

with that much lighting you should be using co2. after i saw the post i did search and found the test kits. all i can say is some test kits are better then others.

i use this to help figure out how much to put in my tank. i wouldnt want to

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/fertilator.php
The Fertilator is a comprehensive calculator designed to assist hobbyists with the fertilization of their aquarium.

what test kit do you use? i am looking at 2 test kits. NutraFin test kits that test up to 1.0ppm but tests at .25. the lowest test there would be to much. Seachem Multi Test Iron say it tests at 0.05 mg/L so it looks to be a good test.

i know there are ways to tell if there are deficiency i just dont know them. i am also guessing you are adding all the other ferts.

[reiverix]

Iron test kits are not highly accurate. By all means use it as a very rough guide but not as gospel.

Are your plants showing an Fe deficiency? Do you dose other traces, and how often? High light tanks without CO2 can become a recipe for an algae fest and adding unnecessary iron could cause problems. It won't hurt your fishes eyes though :)

[Cityfish]

I read the same…. I think I’ll be patient and dose weekly. I hale an inch of fluorite in the substraight should I still be adding iron to the water column? Should the Iron In the fluorite resister on the water test?

[plah831]

deficiencies are usually apparent in poor growth (curled or see-through leaves) or bad color (yellow usually, sometimes brown). The yellowing of leaves is known generically as "chlorosis". There are subtleties to the chlorosis that tell you which nutrient is missing. Like nitrogen deficiencies usually show up in older leaves where the entire leaf is yellow. Lack of iron usually results in new leaves that are yellow between the veins (green tree-like pattern, with yellow around).

[Goatman]

Are you using Seachem's iron test? Their iron gluconate is not detected in standard iron test kits.

[plah831]

Are you using Seachem's iron test? Their iron gluconate is not detected in standard iron test kits.
What tests register ferrous gluconate? I was going to go with Seachem because it seems they measure smaller increments, but won't now. Or maybe switch iron brands.