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Re: My tank can't get enough iron!



Greg Morin said:

"But what I would suggest is to use Flourish
Iron to maintain iron levels, not Flourish. Flourish contains iron
but most of the other components in Flourish won't be used at the
same rate as iron will be, so if you use Flourish over and over to
try and keep your iron level up you will end up adding too much of
everything else. This is exactly the reason we came out with Flourish
Iron, so that iron could be maintained independently of the other
components."

This seems like a case of the dog chasing its tail. It's my understanding
that a properly constituted trace element mix is made such that every trace
element is present in the same ratios that they are used by the plants. So,
if all the iron is used up by the plants (and not lost to other processes)
then all the other trace elements will be used up as well, because they are
used in lockstep with iron in the ratio they are present in the mix and in
the plants. Isn't that the underlying assumption to using iron test kits in
the first place? That since iron is most easily tested, it is used as a
proxy to indicate the levels of all the other trace elements? If an iron
rich supplement is used just to get a reading on a test kit for iron,
doesn't that make dosing the other trace elements a shot in the dark again?
It seems to me that a coupled set of products is needed - One that provides
iron and the other traces in the correct ratios, and a test kit that
properly reflects the iron level so that we know that the dosing for all the
trace elements is reasonably correct.

Tom