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Red Sea Iron Test Kit
Previously I had reported that I got reasonable results when I used
the Red Sea Iron test kit to test reference solutions of iron I had
made up. I used ferric sulphate to make these test solutions and I had
a concern that that I might not get the same results with a chelated
iron. To test if the kit would react to chelated iron I made up some
reference solutions using liquid Miracle-Gro house plant food which
contains 0.10% Fe. All the iron is chelated. I made solutions of
0.1, 0.2 and 0.3mg/l. I used tap water to make the dilutions because
I cannot detect iron in my tap water and I felt tap water would be
more representative than using DI water.
I got very good agreement between the test solutions and colors on
the test card. The 0.1 soln had an aqua color, the 0.2 a gray color
and the .3 a light brown color. One very important point to note is
that the colors develop very slowly with the chelated iron. The kit
recommends 10 minutes and I waited 15 min for the colors to fully
develop.
This kit isn't going to detect the difference between .08 and
.13mg/l Fe, but by my tests it will detect the difference between
.1,.2 and .3mg/l. That's all really all the precision that I think I
need - not bad for a $5 kit
By the way using the Liquid Miracle-Gro seems to be a simple way to
make up iron reference solutions. It only cost $2.27 and I used very
little of it leaving most of it for my house plants. One precaution I
did take was to warm the Miracle-Gro slightly and shake it to make
sure everything was in solution.
Jim Spencer Sayre, PA
jrs at cyber-quest_co