[Wet Thumb Forum]-Lets talk about iron and micros. Experts only.

[aviel]

Twood,

If you dose to 0.1 ppm and you wait 10 days then for me it's 0.01 ppm per day. People are reporting 20X-40X times that amount. So yes - you won't have trouble and the chelate won't build up in your case.

I would like to dose iron like the insane fishfry/tsunami/you-name-them do. And I believe the chelate doesn't break that fast.

How do I know? I test for iron strangly enough... And what do I say about test kits? I don't know - they can't measure the amount of iron that goes into the plant because that's a very very small number but they can tell me if my chelate is getting too big and if I exceed roger's 1 ppm inclusive toxic boundary.

Now a question to Roger!!!

The CSM chelate - if we focus on one molecule... - does it contain all the elements such that when it breaks - each element goes on its own way or is it that there is a chelate for iron and then a chelate for manganese and then a chelate for zinc and each of them breaks at a different pace? I mean - could it happend that using CSM - the iron is not broken from the chelate while the zinc is already depleted?

Aviel.

[m.lemay]

Roger: Thanks very much for the replys. I have a similar thread going over at theplantedtank site. Some of the things you've mentioned are enlightening. Unfortunately I don't have time to reply right now but I will in the next few days.

[m.lemay]

I want to start a discussion about iron and micro dosing. The goal here is to get some real data about what works and what doesn't. It's my hope that we can come up with some real hard solutions to this perplexing little "mystery".

I know I'm not the only one that feels like theres no real substance to micro dosing.

Macros for the most part have been real simple. 10ppm nitrates, 1ppm phosphate, 10-30ppm potassium, simple right. Maintain a 10-1 ratio of nitrate to phosphate and alls well. Plus there's lots of room to experiment with fairly quick consequences when deviating from these parameters, which makes it fairly easy to determine cause and effect. Not so with micros. It can take weeks for plants to respond to micros.

Here's some thoughts or questions we might want to discuss:

Are iron tests really useless?
What about the Lamotte/Hach iron tests.
Do we need more iron than Plantex CSM+B offers? If so how much more?
Anyone using Iron Chelate 10% from GregWatson.com? If so, Whats your experience?
Whats your experience for dosing maximum color?
How much is too much micros?
Any other thoughts that would be relevant are also welcome.

I'd like to confine this discussion to planted tank enthusiasts who have something to offer in the way of real experience in this area.

Please don't post general questions about micro dosing in this thread.

Let the discussion begin.
Marcel