dosing of iron

[richietay]

have a test kit for testing Fe, the instruction said mix the lotion with water and result will be shown after 10min. but i only get to see it after 10min, or maybe around 20-30min.
is this normal?!?! what do ur encounter with ur Fe.

[juggler]

I think it says take the reading after 10 minutes. Not more than that. For my JBL Fe test, I remembered the longer I wait the more purple the solution becomes.

[richietay]

but i apply according to the dosage, the correct amt.
result shown not that accurate, need to wait. so how?!?! change test kit?!
mine is JBL testkit.

[PeterGwee]

Forget about the Fe kit. Its a waste of money. Focus more on the CO2 and macros..later micros in mls per gallon. Unless you are sure of the CO2 and macros, it is difficult to tell the effects of micros for the system.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[juggler]

[quote:c9e28876d5="richietay"]but i apply according to the dosage, the correct amt.
result shown not that accurate, need to wait. so how?!?! change test kit?!
mine is JBL testkit.[/quote:c9e28876d5]

If you suspect spoiled test kit, can add a drop of your Fe solution in it to see if it turns purple. Since you already bought the test kits, might as well make use of it.

If confirm spoiled, no need to buy, just dose to 0.2~0.5ppm Fe per week.

Fe is a trace element and isn't a problem if you have been dosing regularly. Usual tank problems are mainly inbalance of the macros N,P,K and CO2 levels resulting in algae.

[liuhao]

i have a seachem iron testkit. according to the instructions, for the chelated iron, it will take 45-60 minutes to show color. but from my experience, it takes much longer, say, 3-4 hours at least. in first 10 hours the color keeps darkening but after 12 hours it's stable. once the color is stable, i can keep it for a few days or a few weeks without losing color.

it's very hard to compare the test color against color scale. they are two different tone of color from what i can see.

what i usually do is prepare a 0.5ppm iron sample. test it using testkit. and then keep the result. after that everytime i test tank water, i compare it against the 0.5ppm sample result. sure it wont tell you how many ppm but you can see if your iron runs out or not.

[Plantbrain]

I do not suggest anyone to use an iron test kit.
They do not tell you what you need to know nor have consistency.
Consider your time frames there.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[David]

I think these kind of test kits cannot really tell the difference between Fe2 and Fe3.......pretty much like NH and NO kits.........