Hey all,

Was wondering something the other day. Now I know that to keep
plants happy in a tank you want to keep trace amounts of iron in the
tank. Now here is the thing, the house I live in was built in 1923 and
has old iron pipes. Now is there going to be enough trace iron in the
water or am I going to have to add it. just wondering


Ben

Ben wrote:

Was wondering something the other day. Now I know that to keep
plants happy in a tank you want to keep trace amounts of iron in the
tank. Now here is the thing, the house I live in was built in 1923 and
has old iron pipes. Now is there going to be enough trace iron in the
water or am I going to have to add it.

Try without adding any first, and see how your plants do. Plant
keeping is as much art as science, and it seems to me that you have to
experiment a bit to get the right mix.

I was adding DIY CO2, potassium, trace elements, fertilizer and iron
to my tank for awhile, with the chemicals going in religiously every
week. I've been cutting way back on them for awhile now, and haven't
run any CO2 for a couple of months, and my plants are doing great.


--
www.ericschreiber.com

Eric Schreiber wrote:
Ben wrote:


Was wondering something the other day. Now I know that to keep
plants happy in a tank you want to keep trace amounts of iron in the
tank. Now here is the thing, the house I live in was built in 1923 and
has old iron pipes. Now is there going to be enough trace iron in the
water or am I going to have to add it.


Try without adding any first, and see how your plants do. Plant
keeping is as much art as science, and it seems to me that you have to
experiment a bit to get the right mix.

I was adding DIY CO2, potassium, trace elements, fertilizer and iron
to my tank for awhile, with the chemicals going in religiously every
week. I've been cutting way back on them for awhile now, and haven't
run any CO2 for a couple of months, and my plants are doing great.


--
www.ericschreiber.com
Thanks eric for the thoughts.

i never had CO2 in my tanks and my plants do really well.

regardless of your piping u should get the best for your plants and stop
guessing on the rust in the pipes. maybe by doing that you introduce
something not so good in your tank. think of a good plant fertilizer, with
micro and macro trace elements. Kent I think is a good choice, their new
line Botanica.

take care
-


"Eric Schreiber" wrote in message
...
Ben wrote:

Was wondering something the other day. Now I know that to keep
plants happy in a tank you want to keep trace amounts of iron in the
tank. Now here is the thing, the house I live in was built in 1923 and
has old iron pipes. Now is there going to be enough trace iron in the
water or am I going to have to add it.

Try without adding any first, and see how your plants do. Plant
keeping is as much art as science, and it seems to me that you have to
experiment a bit to get the right mix.

I was adding DIY CO2, potassium, trace elements, fertilizer and iron
to my tank for awhile, with the chemicals going in religiously every
week. I've been cutting way back on them for awhile now, and haven't
run any CO2 for a couple of months, and my plants are doing great.


--
www.ericschreiber.com

If your plants start to turn yellow - you dont have enough iron...

I am in the country and have well water - I do a 20% or so change a couple
times a week to replace all the trace elements. We have so much iron in the
water if we have a leaky faucet we get an iron ring that forms in the
sink......... I still trace iron chelate - deluted in a water bottle... I
also trace tropical master grow and Kno3 AND Ps2no4 ? I think that last one
is right

check out aquatbotanic.com - web forums - they are a great great great help
and source of information.

Good Luck


Dustin
comments at mbbookstore.com

"Ben" wrote in message
...
Hey all,

Was wondering something the other day. Now I know that to keep
plants happy in a tank you want to keep trace amounts of iron in the
tank. Now here is the thing, the house I live in was built in 1923 and
has old iron pipes. Now is there going to be enough trace iron in the
water or am I going to have to add it. just wondering


Ben

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 23:40:24 -0500, Ben wrote:
tank. Now here is the thing, the house I live in was built in 1923 and
has old iron pipes. Now is there going to be enough trace iron in the
water or am I going to have to add it. just wondering

Iron in the form of rust won't be easily absorbed by the plants. The
roots might be able to get to rust in the substrate, but the leaves
won't be able to take it up.

That's the reason fertilizers contain "chelated" iron. It's iron in a
form easily utilized by plants.

Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

Ben wrote:
Hey all,

Was wondering something the other day. Now I know that to keep
plants happy in a tank you want to keep trace amounts of iron in the
tank. Now here is the thing, the house I live in was built in 1923 and
has old iron pipes. Now is there going to be enough trace iron in the
water or am I going to have to add it. just wondering


Ben

Well I'm glad I asked, since I am very new to this hobby and know close
to nothing. Thanks for the info when I get ready to put the plants in I
will have to get the CO2 system and fertalizer as well

Ben

I was going to suggest that you test the iron levels in your drinking
water (assuming you drinks from the tap, and not bottled H2O). Any
LSF will carry Iron tests. This may help you know just how much iron
you have comming from the pipes...

That's the reason fertilizers contain "chelated" iron. It's iron in a
form easily utilized by plants.

Will the "non-chelated" skew the Fe test results?

I didn't realize that there was a difference between the 2 irons.
Thanks Chuck.

Joseph

I always get green algea when I add plant fertilizer...
even 1/10th the amount does it.

Hagen, Seachem, RedSea....
Some with iron, some without.

Whats worse was I knew this, added Hagen to my tank a month ago...
and my 14" tall anubias nana with 12 leaves all got infested with
green diatoms, so I had to remove all but 2 leaves.

If you are going to fertilize, I recommend you use the substrate
fertilizer tablets.

(Phil Dietz) wrote:

I always get green algea when I add plant fertilizer...
even 1/10th the amount does it.

About the only way to find what works for a given setup is to
experiment. I had more algae than plant growth for awhile, too, until
I started adding Flourish Potassium. That seemed to be the missing
ingredient for my tank. Adding some SAEs didn't hurt, either

and my 14" tall anubias nana with 12 leaves

Holy crap, that's a *big* nana! Mine is not even 3" after almost a
year.

--
www.ericschreiber.com

On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 04:40:24 UTC, Ben wrote:

Hey all,

Was wondering something the other day. Now I know that to keep
plants happy in a tank you want to keep trace amounts of iron in the
tank. Now here is the thing, the house I live in was built in 1923 and
has old iron pipes. Now is there going to be enough trace iron in the
water or am I going to have to add it. just wondering

Very unlikely that the iron pipes will do you any good whatever. You'd
think, when all you need is a tenth of a part per million, it would be
easy to get that much iron; it can't be THAT insoluble! Well, it is.
Iron in the ferric form (Fe+++) can't dissolve in fishtank water, or
drinking water, even in parts per Billion. Ferrous (Fe++) can, but it
oxidizes quickly (if there's enough oxygen that the fish don't suffocate)
and drops immediately out of solution.

Rusty pipes will put rust particles in the water, but not iron in
solution. Rust in the substrate might be useful to plants, but adding
laterite is probably better.

So how do you get iron in water?

1. Iron in the ferrous (Fe++) oxidation state can dissolve, but it
disappears quickly; I've tested and measured this. It probably would
stay in solution if you kept oxygen out of the water. Joke.

2. The ferric state (Fe+++) dissolves just fine in water that's far too
acid for fish to survive even briefly. Ferric chloride, FeCl3, is soluble
-- but if you neutralize it to pH 7 (or 5) the iron drops out.

3. Chelating (key-lating) agents like EDTA and HEDTA grab the ferric ion
and keep it away from the nasty little OH- ions that would make it
precipitate; and plants can still extract the iron and use it. Sorry
about iron and ion; I didn't invent the language.

--
Dan Drake, a freak who compounds his own chelated trace elements

http://www.dandrake.com

I noticed an interesting event the other day that may lead to some
answers. I have a 29 gal. heavily-planted tank. I've been doing
weekly water changes and adding trace chelate mix once a week. Plants
seems to be growing steadily (including the swords) but the leaves are
quite pale. This has been going on for a couple weeks until I decided
to double my trace mix by adding increasing the frequency of dosing to
twice/week. By the end of the week, my swords started developing
brown spots on the leaves and stems. The spots rotted and left holes
in the leaves. So I backed down to my once/day routine, and no more
spots occured. The chelated mix that I used was iron-riched.

It seems that too much iron (or whatever's in my trace mix) is causing
the spots. Most people are concerned of adding too little, and wanted
to add more and more. But in reality, plants only need small amounts
of elements to grow, and putting in too much can cause a poisoning
effect. I would recommend those who have trouble with brown spots to
back off on the trace elements and see if things improve.

hope that helps.







Ben wrote in message ...
Hey all,

Was wondering something the other day. Now I know that to keep
plants happy in a tank you want to keep trace amounts of iron in the
tank. Now here is the thing, the house I live in was built in 1923 and
has old iron pipes. Now is there going to be enough trace iron in the
water or am I going to have to add it. just wondering


Ben