Iron dosing

scotty333

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 11, 2024
Messages
1,642
Reaction score
605
Location
portugal
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Guys
Triton doesn’t give a dosage for iron but they do sell the supplement

Rf on the other hand say .8ml as per my 400ltr tank

But I know the concentrations are likely different


Should I go with .8 and icp in a week see if I get a reading ? I mean it’s nothing and I don’t see it’ll register at such a low dose
 

Pod_01

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 10, 2022
Messages
1,144
Reaction score
1,085
Location
Waterloo
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Just an opinion, if you see lot of algae growing perhaps you dosed too much.

l suspect it is one of the safer elements to experiment with, but I would still observe the tank daily…
If iron is actually limiting your corals you should see improvement, but dosing more than what corals need is not going to help.


Good luck,
 
OP
OP
S

scotty333

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 11, 2024
Messages
1,642
Reaction score
605
Location
portugal
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Just an opinion, if you see lot of algae growing perhaps you dosed too much.

l suspect it is one of the safer elements to experiment with, but I would still observe the tank daily…
If iron is actually limiting your corals you should see improvement, but dosing more than what corals need is not going to help.


Good luck,
I’ve got a caluerpa forest that kinda stopped growing a few months ago
It’s not pale but grows slow so I’m thinking no iron is the cause
Will observe it as it’ll maybe indicate it was needed
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

Reef Chemist
View Badges
Joined
Sep 5, 2014
Messages
72,100
Reaction score
69,741
Location
Massachusetts, United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Guys
Triton doesn’t give a dosage for iron but they do sell the supplement

Rf on the other hand say .8ml as per my 400ltr tank

But I know the concentrations are likely different


Should I go with .8 and icp in a week see if I get a reading ? I mean it’s nothing and I don’t see it’ll register at such a low dose

You cannot use a different supplement brand at the same dose recommended by a different company and expect anything to be correct. Trace element mixes can vary hugely in concentration.
 
OP
OP
S

scotty333

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 11, 2024
Messages
1,642
Reaction score
605
Location
portugal
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
You cannot use a different supplement brand at the same dose recommended by a different company and expect anything to be correct. Trace element mixes can vary hugely in concentration.
I know but I can’t find a dose ratio on tritons iron supplement
From what I’ve seen , rf seems to be weaker than tritons concentration so for now I’ll stick with the .8 and see from there
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

Reef Chemist
View Badges
Joined
Sep 5, 2014
Messages
72,100
Reaction score
69,741
Location
Massachusetts, United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I know but I can’t find a dose ratio on tritons iron supplement
From what I’ve seen , rf seems to be weaker than tritons concentration so for now I’ll stick with the .8 and see from there

Iron doses are very, very noncritical. Nickel likely has a much smaller acceptability window.
 
OP
OP
S

scotty333

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 11, 2024
Messages
1,642
Reaction score
605
Location
portugal
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Iron doses are very, very noncritical. Nickel likely has a much smaller acceptability window.
Yeah that’s why I diluted the nickel after some thought
As a seasoned pro , what would you suggest I try for iron dose ?
Could take months going down my method of .8 then send an icp ( comes back 0) go 1.6ml ( comes back 0……..
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

Reef Chemist
View Badges
Joined
Sep 5, 2014
Messages
72,100
Reaction score
69,741
Location
Massachusetts, United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Yeah that’s why I diluted the nickel after some thought
As a seasoned pro , what would you suggest I try for iron dose ?
Could take months going down my method of .8 then send an icp ( comes back 0) go 1.6ml ( comes back 0……..

This is my general iron advice:

One Fergon tablet (ferrous gluconate) contains 27 mg of iron. Dissolve that in about 27 mL RO/DI (my recommendation, but other concentrations are OK, just don't dilute too much), the concentration is about 27 mg/27 ml ~ 1 mg/mL.

I dose ~1 mL to my tank with a volume of about 300 gallons ) once or twice a week.


That corresponds to a dose of about 1 ppb. Ten or a hundred times that is also apparent find since Red Sea recommended maintaining those higher levels.

here's an older recommendation of mine (which I think works out to about 0.2 ppb):

Iron in Reef Tanks: How Much and What Form?​

Deciding how much iron to add is fairly easy because, in my experience, it doesn’t seem to matter too much. Presumably, once you add enough to eliminate iron as a limiting nutrient, extra iron does not apparently cause harm (at least that I’ve detected in my tanks or heard of from others). I selected a dose of about 0.1 to 0.3 mL of a solution containing 5 g of iron (as 25 g of ferrous sulfate heptahydrate) in 250 mL of water containing 50.7 g of sodium citrate dihydrate. This liquid is dosed 2-3 times per week to my system with a total water volume of about 250 gallons. This iron(II) citrate has turned brown and cloudy since I first made up the bottle years ago, suggesting that it is oxidizing to iron(III) and some is precipitating from solution, but I still use it. Over the past 4 years, I’ve dosed nearly all of the 5 grams of actual iron to my tank.

Now that may sound like a huge amount, and it is. It’s enough to bring 800 million gallons of completely depleted seawater up to the 0.000006 ppm level that I mentioned earlier for natural sea surface water. Still, I’ve not noticed any problem, do not know the steady state concentration, do not know how high of a solution concentration is actually optimal for my tank, do not know how much is biologically available by the mechanisms mentioned below, do not know how fast it is removed by skimming and other mechanisms, and do not know what would happen if I cut it back by a factor of 1,000.

All that I know is that microalgae has never been a problem since starting the iron, and I’ve not noticed anything negative that I could attribute to the iron (nor have I heard of any from others doing similar dosing). Still, I don’t keep all organisms available to the hobby, and if you do seem to get a negative reaction from something, I’d advise backing off on the dose or stopping completely.
 
OP
OP
S

scotty333

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 11, 2024
Messages
1,642
Reaction score
605
Location
portugal
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Thanks boss , do you have a definitive answer for me using tritons product ?
Or best guess will do since it seems overdosing isn’t a problem
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

Reef Chemist
View Badges
Joined
Sep 5, 2014
Messages
72,100
Reaction score
69,741
Location
Massachusetts, United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Thanks boss , do you have a definitive answer for me using tritons product ?
Or best guess will do since it seems overdosing isn’t a problem

I'd use it at the dose Triton says to use.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

Reef Chemist
View Badges
Joined
Sep 5, 2014
Messages
72,100
Reaction score
69,741
Location
Massachusetts, United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Triton don’t advise but rf do

Ah, I see. So you have an additive of unknown concentration and no recommendation on a dosing amount.

I'd get something else.
 
OP
OP
S

scotty333

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 11, 2024
Messages
1,642
Reaction score
605
Location
portugal
Rating - 0%
0   0   0

Attachments

  • IMG_3581.png
    IMG_3581.png
    86.9 KB · Views: 15
Back
Top