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Do you dose iron?

Piper

Piper

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How many of you are dosing iron? If you are dosing, are you doing on a regular basis? Are you testing?

I do about a 20% water change every two weeks or so. All I dose regularly is is two-part and magnesium all via dosing pumps. On occasion I will add Iodide (Seachem) but not on a regular basis and usually at 1/2 to 3/4 of recommended dose. About a month ago I picked up the RedSea Reef Colors test kit (Yes, Erin - another test!!!) and I find that my iron is constantly low or non-existent. I'm assuming the macros and mangroves in the fuge are consuming faster than I can replenish via the regular water changes. The macros and mangroves all look fine and are growing fairly well.

I want to see how many of you are testing for and/or dosing iron.

~Charlie
 
Why not? I'm betting most of us here don't. I'm not exactly having any issues with colors on my corals or macro growth so I'm not exactly seeing the need to dose it. Just wanting to see if anyone is and what the gains are, if any.
 
For me, it's a matter of cost:benefit. I also do weekly water changes which are sufficient to replenish all trace elements etc.
Dosing alk/ca/mg is enough for me!
 
Iron is a limiting factor for dinoflagellates as well as some macros and mangroves. I think it would be hard to dose iron to keep the kelp type macros and mangroves happy and yet not put yourself at risk of dino blooms. It sounds like I am with others--water changes with a good salt mix or NSW is all the iron supplementation you should attempt.
 
Iron is needed for red blood cells............wait corals don't have that so I think it's o.k. LoL

- My attempt at some humor.
 
My opinion :
If you rely heavily on macro/mangroves/algae scrubbers, and do not change enough water,
then you might need to consider iron.
I run an algae scrubber, which tends to suck the iron out. I tried adding iron. Maybe a touch better
algae growth in the scrubber. Hard to know for sure. Zero difference to anything else.
I don't bother anymore.

If you see the mangroves looking poorly, consider it. Otherwise no.
 
Interesting question, Piper!

I presumed that anyone running GFO, especially in a media reactor, is effectively "dosing" at least a little into their systems. Dana Riddle's article in AA seems to indicate that GFO does produce some soluble iron, but I am uncertain whether the iron is bioavailable or not.

This could be a good basis for an experiment!
 
I only dose ca/alk/mag and occasionally iodine. Never even thought of iron nor has anyone along the way told me about it
 
iCon - For as long as it takes to do the test I can damn near do a W/C. I would imagine that the cost of the additional salt with bumped up W/C wouldn't be too much different than the cost of the supplement. Not to mention the additional benefits of the W/C.

Mike/Mike - All macros are doing fine and I'm pulling cheato out on a regular basis. I did lose a mangrove this week but I think that was more to the shock from moving to a new sump after my old one leaked. It was very well rooted and I probably damaged the roots when I yanked it out. I don't really have an algae problem other than the film on the glass every few days. If I go too long between w/c I can get a little brown goo on the sand put it quickly goes away after a w/c.

Erin - Yep. Everything just looks better after a w/c and I don't see adding iron alone giving me that same effect.

Mark - I guess I was looking to see if anyone had any other positive results from iron other than algae growth. I think you summed it up with "Zero difference to anything else".

David - That could possibly be a good experiment. If you could have two tanks set up and run the same way you could use one as a control without iron and one with iron and see what happens. You can use frags cut from the same colonies to compare. Throw in some macro algae too.

tankguy - Same here. I dosed iron when I had a freshwater planted tank but never really did that with salt. I read an article on trace and minor elements a few months back and IIRC they said not to worry about iron. I'll see if I can find the mag again and re-read that part.

~Charlie
 
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