Dosing Iron - how long for plants to show improvement?

[vthokie]

I just began to add some iron to my tank, as some of the plants were showing signs of iron deficiency (yellow). How long does it normally take to see some improvement? Days? Weeks?

When things improve, do the same leaves that were yellow turn green again, or is it just the new growth?

I'm trying to figure out how much to dose. I have a test kit, but apparently they are not reliable and most people recommend that you just observe the plants.

I have a 75g low-light tank with anubias, crypts, java fern, java moss and water sprite.

Thanks!

 

[Purrbox]

I would expect to see some results in less than a week. It depends on how badly damaged the leaves are as to whether or not they will come back and turn green again. Usually your better off dosing a good trace supplement to .1-.2 iron, rather than adding iron separately. Chances are that they are short on other micronutrients if they are short on iron.

 

[vthokie]

Great! Thanks for the info. I looked for some trace supplements, but my LFSs were out so I just got the iron supplement. I'll look into ordering some online. Thanks again!

 

[gheitman]

How are you adding iron to your tank? Are you using Flourish Iron or something else instead? What do you use for a general purpose nutrient supply? Most Anubias get by without supplementing iron IME but some Crypts, especially those with red leaves, definitely benefit from dosing with iron.

 

[vthokie]

Yes, I'm using Flourish Iron. I've only done one dose so far, about 5 days ago. I've never done this before, so I'm afraid of adding too much. In addition, I use Flourish fert. tabs.

All was great for a while, then the yellow started. A couple of weeks earlier I had added a bunch of new crypts, so I'm guessing the new plant load may have sucked up some nutrients.

Most of the affected plants are the crypt. spiralis. The wendtiis appear to be doing a bit better.

 

[gheitman]

Flourish Iron (or any iron supplement added to the water column for that matter) tends to stay available for only 24 hours. I dose my plants in most of my tanks with Flourish Iron five days a week. Seachem recommends dosing 1ml per 10g of volume but in a low light situation like you have dosing half as much might be a good place to start.

Flourish Tabs will definitely help your Crypts since they are primarily root feeders. If you aren't using a general supplement yet I suggest you get Flourish liquid to supply the trace elements your plants may need.

 

[Plantbrain]

Generally if you want to see improvements to a planted tank, the first thing on that list would be CO2/Excel.

From there you look at NO3/K/PO4/GH, then Traces.

If you have good CO(2, NO3./PO4/K/GH etc, then adding will certainly improve things.

I tend to give the traces about 3 weeks, many cases you will see things sooner, but I like to make sure what I'm seeing is definitely due to traces over time.

Plants often will suck up a limiting nutrient, then, they start to go after other nutrients.....after 3 weeks or so, the K+ might now be low, and then you see poor plant health or algae and blame it on over dosing iron etc.

This is why correlation (adding the Fe for awhile) is a bad idea to confer causation to.

It was not the Fe directly, it was the downstream effect of adding one nutrient that causes the removal of another.

Often when folks add all the nutrients, the amount of CO2 is now higher, sop they get algae and think it's because they have high PO4/NO3/Adding too much Traces etc.

When the real issue was they simply needed to add a bit more CO2.

Focus on the whole plant and the entire needs, not one single thing is the point.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[vthokie]

Thanks for the info...I'll make a note of it. I have not tried CO2 because everything I've read says that low-light tanks don't need it. However, I do have water sprite which I don't think is low-light (but doing well).

I'd like to keep things as simple as possible (hence the low-light tank). I will try Excel and maybe Flourish liquid.

Thanks again to everyone for the info!