RE: [APD] Chelating Agents

["Richard J. Sexton" <richard at aquaria_net>]

>>Wu from the DFW club now is switching the iron 
>>sulphate, no chelating agent and I would not be suprised if he reports 
>>absolutely no change in his tanks, I'm eagerly awaiting his results.
>
>I did post a message on here a while ago without any replies, but here
>are a few thoughts from me.  I'm been avidly reading the archive about
>iron and that lovely gluconate vs edta thread and the whole thing
>puzzled me making no things clearer. Regardless, I hunted the web for
>sources of gluconate thinking it would be better (my train of thought is
>probably better not explained).  Without any luck, my attention turned
>to straight FeSO4.  The box I have is 20% Fe; if I have done my
>calculations correct, then I think there is a large proportion of
>impurity taking into account the sulphate.  I'm not going to complain
>though, because it does work.  One of my plants was growing on the white
>side, add FeSO4 (mixed up in water first so not to overdose) and hey
>presto, green plants.  I tested the water shortly after but no
>measurable value of iron was present, albeit using a non-sensitive kit.
>Perhaps the "rust" went into the gravel?  Isn't that where we want the
>iron though?  All I can say is that there has been an improvement.  The
>exact ins and outs of it, I'm probably not qualified to say.  But
>beware, too much FeSO4 turns the water nasty for a couple of hours,
>possibly zapping out oxygen in the process.  Anyone else use neat iron
>sulphate with similar findings?

I remember reading this same thread on usenet in the 80s. Smoe guy wiped
out a tank of angels doing this.

Having saud that, I'm part of the "washers in deep sand substrate" crowd
and havn't had a problem with that in over a decade of doing this. My
water is also .25 ml/L ferric iron, and accoring to my cheap little
Hagen test kit .30 mg/l is toxic to fish. Yeah ok but .25 isn't toxic
to shrimp, snails, fish or killi eggs. And the plants like it lots.


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