Re: Dosing of iron

[williamng]

Hi

I have dose quite a lot of liquid iron but my JBL test kit shows me 0 iron level and some of the leaves on my red plant is turning green.

What is the problem?? If I overdose iron, will i get an algae boom?

[Sleepy_lancs]

[quote:ea2ff055="williamng"]Hi

I have dose quite a lot of liquid iron but my JBL test kit shows me 0 iron level and some of the leaves on my red plant is turning green.

What is the problem?? If I overdose iron, will i get an algae boom?[/quote:ea2ff055]

Hi,

You want to tell us what liquid iron you are dosing? How much of it? and what is your size of the tank?

Off hand, iron doesn't algae boom however, when combine with excess of Phosphate and NO3, your tank will be an algae farm in matter of days :P

[geoffrey]

[quote:ab8e81f635="williamng"]Hi

I have dose quite a lot of liquid iron but my JBL test kit shows me 0 iron level and some of the leaves on my red plant is turning green.

What is the problem?? If I overdose iron, will i get an algae boom?[/quote:ab8e81f635]

Red plants turning green in an aquarium is more often due to a lack of light than Fe. You only need a teeny weeny bit of Fe as trace for plants. As long as your green plants do not turn yellowish on their new shoots, it is not a Fe deficiency.

Try shifting that particular plant in question to directly under the lights. BTW, what is that red plant? Neasea sp?

[TanVincent]

My Neasea Sp wrinkled up and dies, even if its under bright light .

Cheers
Vincent

[PeterGwee]

Vincent, your NO3 is too low....bad test kit resolution, testing error can contribute to such things happening. Balancing colours of plants in a high light tank is very tricky in my experience. Too much NO3 and red plants green up while too little NO3 stunts them. (Do note that red plants can stunt in "green colour" as well if not well fed.) If you are going for colours, try dropping the light lower to 2W/G-2.5W/G. Nutrient uptake is slower and margin for error is greater even if you forgot and skip a dose. Running NO3 lean is easier and the chances of stunting is lesser too.

Geoffrey, I do not agree that the greening of a "red" plant is due to light unless it is path to the light source is badly blocked. Something is missing in the chain of CO2(most likely), NO3, K2SO4, GH(unlikely though), traces(likely) and PO4(likely) that causes the NO3 to build up or plant to stunt in the current state in which case in "green" colour.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[juggler]

[quote:1669e18cc8="TanVincent"]My Neasea Sp wrinkled up and dies, even if its under bright light .

Cheers
Vincent[/quote:1669e18cc8]

Neasea sp. is not an easy plant, man.

[geoffrey]

Pete, it is very unlikely for a red plant to be stunted in growth at a stage of green without first appearing in other symptoms on our other green plants.

The production of chorophyll for plants to appear green needs nutrients other than an accumulation of NO3. Any shortage of these nutrients will lead to chlorosis, a lack of chlorophyll, exposing more yellowish pigments. In some instance, a serious case of limited P leads to leaves turning purplish, an indication of more anthrocycanins pigments than chorophyll. So, how can a lack of nutrients make plants greener? It would change from red to yellowish without staying green.

Hence, it is IMHO, when light is insufficient, plants will spend more energy producing chorophyll instead of carotenoid or anthrocycanins (pigments that give the red and yellow) to help harnass the limited light energy for photosynthesis.

[figgy jr]

sorry to borrow this page, but i have similar problem and i better not post another link as not to waste the site page, my fe reading of iron under sera kit reads 0. how come, my tank is 2wks old thus the base fertilizer is still new.added jbl ferroplo juz yesterday and still iron is 0...can it be due to lack of iron and do i need to get a direct juz iron supplement rather than the jbl ferroplo. another, is iron and fertilizer the same content????wats the difference in the work??thanks

[FC]

It is rather tricky when come to Fe measurements. I used to try dosing and keeping Fe at 0.2 and above. The dosing is right but I never get to read that.

Fe and traces are the least to be concerned about. They are usually in abandance from fish feeds. Afterall, deficiency of traces are very rare. You should place more attention to PO4, NO3, K, Ca, and Mg, in the order of reducing importance.

[Plantbrain]

Try this:

Add 5 mls of the trace mix 2-3x a week per ~20 gal of tank water.
This adds what the plants need.

The test kit does not tell you what you need to know: Are the plants getting enough Iron?

It's just that simple. Check the APD for more in depth discussions.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[kadios]

I have a question, in a tank with high NO3(meaning >5ppm), will a red plant turns red when it is near the light source?

Recently, I've been trying to turn my Prosopernica Palustris reddish by reducing dosage of lushgrow aqua(to keep NO3 lower) and increasing my Fe and traces. I noticed the PPs that are closer to the light source(height > 1/2 of tank height) turning reddish while those with height less than half of the tank height remains green. It seems like the different dosages of lushgrow aqua does not exhibit any significant changes.

I suscept that my problem lies more with the lighting. My tank parameters in feet are 3x1.5x2(depth), lighting consists of 4FLs(30W each) and 2 PLs(36W). However, when I look at the 3 ft tank at Teo's, I'm confused. Their 3 ft tank is exactly the same as mine and they only use 4FLs(30W) and yet their Red Lotus remains so red and low.

Is there a lighting "baseline" for red plants to be red? Juz for reference purposes? I believe >3W/gallon is the minimum requirement, right?

I'm tryin to avoid using NO3 testkit since feedback from the forum seems to doubt its accuracy. Fyi, all the other plants are growing, it's juz that I wish to try out red plants. Thanks!

Cheers!

[Plantbrain]

The plant's relatively slow growth has the new growth not fully developed, and less chlorophyll in the new growth, and less green.
Older leaves have more time to develop and become greener.

The Red will come out in that case and if you add more NO3.
Rotala's will do this also.

There is no plant I cannot keep nice a red with around 2w gal.
Good nutrients will take care of the plants fine.

"Less is more" very often.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[FC]

There is no plant I cannot keep nice a red with around 2w gal.
Good nutrients will take care of the plants fine.

That's very real. For the pass few months, I have been using about 1.8 WPG and a matching dose regime with great success. My red plant red, green plant green, water is clear and glass is clean. My eventual goal is less water change in long term - once every month and still keeping the tank in top shape.