Re: [APD] Flourish iron & KH drop

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

What's your method of testing for iron. For the minscule levels one needs for aquatic gardening most of those of-the-shelf tests are pretty much useless, imo. One way to make use of them, if they register any iron at all, that's usually enough.
 
sh
 
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----- Original Message ----
From: Kevin_Buckley at uk.neceur.com
To: aquatic-plants at actwin_com
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 5:57:33 AM
Subject: Re: [APD] Flourish iron & KH drop


I guess a 500ml dose each time would be quite interesting to watch!

My tank initially measured 0mg/l Fe so I made an initial dose of 2 x 
"capfuls" (~4ml - 5ml).

After that, I was dosing a capful every other day & my Fe was hovering 
around 0.1mg/l.

I used the "5ml added to 2l" quantity so that the test was do'able & the 
result likely to be measurable by a "hobby" KH test kit.

Trying to add 50 microlitres of Flourish iron to 2l would be pretty 
impossible & I'm sure the result would be unmeasurable using a "two drops 
per degree KH" test kit.

However, what I can tell you is that, within 2 minutes of adding 5ml of 
Flourish iron to my 50g, the pH started to drop from it's controlled level 
of 7.30, down to 7.15 after about 15 minutes.

So it seems to me I don't need to look elsewhere for the culprit!

Regards, Kevin

>On 24/03/2006, at 7:38 AM, Kevin_Buckley at uk.neceur.com wrote:
>
>> It's not organic acids.  As I said in the original post, I added 
>> 5ml of Flourish iron to 2L of tapwater & in 30 minutes the KH 
>> dropped from 10 degrees to 7.5 degrees.  Nothing else added!
>>
>> Anyway, I know the rate at which the KH drops in my 50g - I've been 
>> running it (& monitoring it) continuously since 1997.  It's 
>> definitely the Flourish iron which I've just started using.<snip>
>
>David Aiken wrote:
>
>So how much are you using?
>
>Seachem recommend dosing at 0.5 to 1 ml per 40 litres as required in 
>order to maintain iron levels at 0.1 mg/l.
>
>You've got a 50 gallon = 200 litre tank. Are you dosing 500 ml of 
>Flourish Iron in your tank each time, because that's the equivalent 
>to what you're adding to your 2 l sample.
>
>Your test uses an absolutely massive dose and the EDTA in the product 
>may well be doing something with the carbonates in the water when 
>added at those concentrations. The question isn't what the product 
>does at those concentrations. It's what does it do at the 
>concentrations you dose your tank at.
>
>You've got a 50 gallon tank. That's 200 litres. You're using a 2 
>litre sample. Divide the normal dose you give your tank by 100, add 
>that to a 2 L sample of water, and see what that does. If that causes 
>the KH to drop, then maybe your test is giving you the answer to why 
>your KH is dropping, but if a test using the same concentration of 
>Flourish Iron in a 2 l sample that you actually dose your tank with 
>doesn't cause the KH to drop then you probably need to look elsewhere 
>for your answer.
>
>David Aiken
>
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