Iron for your caulerpa?

[aquaguy]

Hi guys.

Have you ever added chelated Iron to your tank? my caulerpa is not growing at all and I tested for iron and chelated iron and I got 0 in both, I know that chelate iron is good for macro algae but I don't know if it is good for corals too. Do you think that it's worth it? Thanks

 

[davelin315]

Can't say for sure, but introducing any metals into your reef system seems like a bad idea to me if it is going to exceed the content in natural seawater (and I'm not sure exactly how you would get iron in that low a concentration which is geared towards plant life). From what I understand, if you grow macros in your tank, don't feed them anything besides the natural waste of your tank or you're asking for trouble.

 

[aquaguy]

There is a "new" supplement (I think it's new) for macro algae it calls "super chelated iron" from Kent marine, it says "Provides bio-available iron manganese and other micronutrientes tu spur macro-algae growth. Useful for Caulerpa and all calcareous algae. Benefits symbiotic algae in coral tissue... " but i'm not sure to add this to my tank, I have the same thought as you Davelin and sometimes there is a new product just to take your money, but maybe it's really a good supplement, that's why i'm asking for. you know, in this hobby always is something new to try

By the way I know all plants need iron to grow, but I don't think fish waste has it. Thanks for your help.

 

[SPC]

Randy Holmes Farley who frequents these boards adds it to his tank and has had good success with it, having said that, I would not add it to mine. No doubt macros need iron, but so do micros. When I have added the liquid form to my FW planted tank I allways had an algae bloom.
Steve

 

[mbsparo]

I had it to my tank. I have a 150gal tank and I add it at half what Kent says on the bottle. I also add it once a month directly to my refugium, the macros love it. But the stuff is like fertilizer to all algae, so beware. Dose very, very low.

Take care,

Mike

 

[monkeyboy]

I used to add the reccomended dose back in the part of my reefkeeping career entitled "the more additives the better". I didn't have any macroalgea at the time and I didn't notice any negative effects (ie hair algae etc). The iron should be good and watered down already, you could give it a try if you're stumped why the macro won't grow but like NJMike said, does half the reccomended.

 

[randy holmes-farley]

I do dose quite a bit of iron citrate to my tank, as Steve mentioned. In my case, I believe that it helped macroalgae win out over microalgae.

 

[aquaguy]

Thank you guys for all your replies, I will try some in my tank to see what happen, by the way Randy Holmes; where you get Iron citrate? just to know, I think it could be cheaper than "chelated iron" how do you add it to your tank? is there a "recipe"?

Thanks a lot

 

[randy holmes-farley]

I make the iron citrate that I use from iron (II) sulfate and sodium citrate. FWIW, iron citrate is one form of chelated iron. If you don't have a ready source of chemicals, you're probably better off with a commercial mix.

 

[Lynn]

Little confused here, but I thought that a person didn't want caulerpa growing in their tanks?? I have (I think) caulerpa racemosa and I've been picking it out?
Lynn

 

[Anonymous]

Many of the common brands of trace elements have small amounts of iron. That would be more than sufficient.

 

[monkeyboy]

At what concentration does iron occur in NSW? Should probably test first, add iron if needed. Well wait, can we test for the iron that is used up or is it another one of those elements (like iodine and phosphate) where they have different forms and can only test for 1 or 2?

ANEMONEBUFF: W/out testing how do we know if the trace iron supplied by trace element suppliments will be enough or too much, for that matter? For example, some trace element solutions contain trace amounts of calcium, but since we know that CA is used up fairly quickly we add more. If we don't know how much iron is depleted we don't know how much to add.

[ December 14, 2001: Message edited by: monkeyboy ]</p>

 

[randy holmes-farley]

monkeyboy:

Iron in seawater is in very short supply, and is, in fact, limiting to growth in some parts of the ocean. In tanks it is even more likely to be limiting because the other limiting nutrients (phosphate and nitrate or other nitrogen sources) are plentiful in reef tanks.

Iron is also actively sucked out by algae and skimming. And it takes many forms.

 

[EmilyB]

Macroalgae growth is a sign of excess nutrients that are taken up by their growth. It can be an export mechanism of excess nutrients if you do not use good skimming, or, potentially other forms of nutrient export. Macroalgae must be harvested to remove the excess nutrients from your tank. However, it is nice to feed your herbivores with !!

 

[monkeyboy]

Ok, so how do we know how much to dose? Do we trust Kent in their reccomendation? I'm going to pick up a Fe kit today and see what I come up with.

 

[aquaguy]

I have a test kit for Iron (hagen), it tests for "free" Iron which is NOT beneficial and "chelated Iron" which is beneficial, I got 0 mg/l in both, that's why I asked about Iron as a supplement and I added some to my tank already.

For Free Iron you have to get less than 0.1 mg/l
For Chelated Iron you need 0.25 to 0.5 mg/l below this; your Iron level is too low if you get more than 0.5 mg/l then you have to perform a partial water change.

I hope it makes sense.