I plan on starting to use Micronutrient fertilizer mix and dosing schedule will be classic EI on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
My Tank Parameters are 8.1 PH, 4 KH and 4 GH.
My current issue is that i need to use a mix with a chelator that is reasonably stable with my PH. What I mean is that i just want my plants to get enough Iron and other micros. I can accept that my situation is less than ideal and I cant get 100% chelator stability at 8.1 PH.
Most common chelator I find as dry ferts is EDTA which is stable up to 6.5 PH, therefore I might use DTPA which is stable up to 7.5 PH as it is closer to my 8.1 PH.
My 8.1 PH after 2 hours of CO2 injection will drop to a constant 7.1 PH at lights on.
With these conditions, can I have healthy amounts of Iron with my tanks with regular dosing? or would i need to double or triple the dose?
I plan on starting to use Micronutrient fertilizer mix and dosing schedule will be classic EI on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
My Tank Parameters are 8.1 PH, 4 KH and 4 GH.
My current issue is that i need to use a mix with a chelator that is reasonably stable with my PH. What I mean is that i just want my plants to get enough Iron and other micros. I can accept that my situation is less than ideal and I cant get 100% chelator stability at 8.1 PH.
Most common chelator I find as dry ferts is EDTA which is stable up to 6.5 PH, therefore I might use DTPA which is stable up to 7.5 PH as it is closer to my 8.1 PH.
My 8.1 PH after 2 hours of CO2 injection will drop to a constant 7.1 PH at lights on.
With these conditions, can I have healthy amounts of Iron with my tanks with regular dosing? or would i need to double or triple the dose?
I'm Not an expert by far, not even close but I was told I had to dose DTPA 11% for iron with my pH being 7.5, I don't run c02 though so hopefully one of the experts will come by and answer your question.
Most common chelator I find as dry ferts is EDTA which is stable up to 6.5 PH, therefore I might use DTPA which is stable up to 7.5 PH as it is closer to my 8.1 PH.
My 8.1 PH after 2 hours of CO2 injection will drop to a constant 7.1 PH at lights on.
OTher than EDTA and DTPA the most common sources used iron gluconate and iron EDDHA. Gluconate is a type of acidic sugar. My understanding is that it works well at high PH but it must be added every few days to maintain a stable Iron level. Seachem iron is iron gluconate.
EDDHA is stable to a PH of 10 to 11 so it would work for you. But I have read that it can color the water red.
I don't know of any other sources of iron available. I have used seachem iron but I have not used EDDHA.
DTPA will be fine. Its not an all or nothing thing where at 7.6 the chelator is all gone (separated). 7.5 for dtpa is just where it begins to happen. Around 8 you might lose 30-40%. But its not 8 all the time, for much of the day its down in the 7s. Pic shows the general idea. Frankly I wouldnt worry about it
That's my website, and I can confirm, EDDHA adds a red tint to the water. Of course, it is dose dependent and at low levels shouldn't be noticeable except when viewing the long axis of the tank.
I have ph 8.0 tap water I used to use EDTA chelated Fe in Thrive, it preciptated out and made a mess.
Now I use DTPA 11% dosed everyday and it seems to work no more ppt. However I run CO2 24/7 so my ph is stable at about 6.4 - 6.5 as @burr740 said it should still work even with higher pH some of the time.
If you are concerned just dose DTPA daily and add the dose before lights on when your pH is below 7.0. Use some experimentation it may not matter to your plants if some decomposes and precipitates out.
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