Tank is sucking the life out of iron!

My 20 gallon has 70wpg (2 20w bulbs +2 15w "screw in" powercompacts....all in 5000K or 6500K). I us two Nutrafin CO2 systems with a powerhead and reactor for diffusion) getting 20ppm+. Substrate is 50/50 sand/Flourite Red. I have at least 70% of tank planted and the rest is just growing in. I have 8 Neons, 1 Betta, 4 Ottos, 3 Ghost Shrimp, and 6 Corys. I dose Flourish 5ml 3x/wk, Flour Potassium 40ml 1x/wk (20ppm), Flour Iron 5ml ??x/wk. Keep 5 to 10ppm Nitrate, Enema 10 drops 3x/wk (1ppm). My plants pearl regularly.

Anyways, this week I noticed I am having to dose Iron every day to keep any in my tank. I dose to get about .8ppm and the next day have no "real" detectable levels. Test kit is Seachem and pretty new- no issues. My phosphate drops pretty quickly too, but I only dose it every 3 days. Iron is getting sucked up quickly! I never heard of it going so fast, even in high light tanks. I have 2 Amazon Swords and some(3) Dwarf Chain swords in my mix. One of the Amazons has 2 plantlets that are pretty much ready to be cut off and planted alone, and two of the chain swords have one runner each with some minor growth. Are these runners sucking the iron into their roots? (I understand these to be heavy root feeders and like plenty of iron).

And just to be like everyone else with algae problems, I have just been getting a major spur of brown and green spot algae with some minor BBA appearing this week. This is what made me look more closely at my nutrient levels. I have only been adding Iron so frequently for the last 3 or 4 days. I was adding .6 to .8ppm 3x/wk before that (with the Phosphate). Do you all think the lack of Iron started this algae onslought? Should I do a blackout for 3 days after my waterchange tomorrow to get rid of the remaining algae? Will blackout affect BBA?

Thanks for the insight, both of you.

Tom, if the Iron isn't needed, why does it appear that I'm getting slight greenwater and more algae than normal? I really started noticing it since my last water change (Saturday). Am I possibly adding too much Flourish? I was trying to add 5mL 3x/wk to keep up with micro-nutrients (per your advice at various places). Your point was that we often don't keep enough of these nutrients in our systems. I noticed that today some of my lighter green leaves that were growing on my Swordplants are now starting to darken up! Am I imagining this? Do leaves get darker green even after they have grown in pale?

From my stated fertilizing regime, does it sound like I'm doing things correctly? You think I should cut back (again) to 3x/wk dosing 5ml Flourish Iron? Remember I'm also using Flourish (already contains iron). Lastly, when my Flourish Potassium bottle runs out (goes quickly!) I'm going to be using "NoSalt" (mine isn't NuSalt) at 1/4tsp once per week.....sound right?

Thanks for advice, guys. I'm close to having balance, but still ironing out a few minor discrepensies. No pun intended (IRONing out)!

You will have to explain that a little better for me Wetman. I thought that Flourish and Flourish Iron both used chelated iron?

Although I appreciate the advice and idea, I just don't want any more things to have to add to my water to make it balanced. I have heard many, many tanks run fine with what I'm doing, but with everything in proper balance. I just want to find that balance.
Any other ideas, anyone?

Since about the second day of daily iron dosing, I've noticed a marked retreat of brown diatom algae. I'm sure my Ottos are helping, but there is a drastic difference the last two days. I only see a few minor "hard to reach" spots remaining. There has got to be some way to get all the right amounts of nutrients for more than one day at a time.

Is 5 mL Flourish too much to add 3x/wk? (20 gallon tank)

Yeah, I know it's toxic to have too much. Otherwise I would have dumped in about 3 capfuls to last the 3 days! I guess I'm stuck adding Fe daily for now (till I can figure out what's happening). What makes Fe "precipitate" out? (Does this happen in every tank?) Why is mine faster now that when I first started dosing?

I see Plantbrain pointing out that the test kits don't show the "real" amount of available iron in our systems, and that once every three days is plenty.

One other thing that I did was cut back from 12 hours daily to 11 hours of light. I do 40w for 12 hours and 30w more comes on an hour after the 40, and shuts off an hour before. Does that make sense to everyone? That's my moderate way of slowly increasing light intensity and slowly lowering it. So I now have 11 hours of 40w light, and 9 hours of 70w light. Should I lower this one more hour respectively? (10/8 hours)