Lauren A Posted February 11 Share Posted February 11 (edited) Hi! This is a random question, but I heard recently is best to add ferts (I use Easy Green) 2 days after a water change when using Prime instead of that day or the next. Is this true? I always add my ferts the next morning after a water change before lights go on. For the tanks I use Easy Green, they’re both 10’a and are 1 year old and a 2 year old tank. Very healthy. They each have only a betta, fully planted with nutrient demanding plants and some snails. I have very little nitrates in my tank post wc and through the week so I dose 2x weekly. I have 2 other tanks I use dry ferts in daily. They all get Prime. But today for instance, I did a wc yesterday afternoon on the 2 tanks I use Easy Green and I know my plants are hungry but will wait another day if Prime does effect it. This is new news for me if true. Thanks! acryally I will add one more question, my Water Sprite is always a yellow ish green color. Not pale and grows with no yellowinh, but not bright green like it should be. Is this iron if the plants are still healthy or maybe a lighting issue? Edited February 11 by Lauren A Changed browning to yellowing 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mmiller2001 Posted February 11 Share Posted February 11 It doesn’t and I dose my tank immediately after water changes. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lauren A Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 (edited) On 2/11/2024 at 12:46 PM, Mmiller2001 said: It doesn’t and I dose my tank immediately after water changes. Thank you! Awesome. I should start dosing immediately too. Thanks for your help! Added this as an edit to above but will repost: I will add one more question, my Water Sprite is always a yellow ish green color. Not pale and grows, but not bright green like it should be. Is this iron if the plants are still healthy or maybe a lighting issue? sorry another edit. Took out no yellowing. Made no sense! Here’s a pic: Edited February 11 by Lauren A Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lauren A Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 Maybe it’s Magnesium? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mmiller2001 Posted February 11 Share Posted February 11 On 2/11/2024 at 10:48 AM, Lauren A said: Thank you! Awesome. I should start dosing immediately too. Thanks for your help! Added this as an edit to above but will repost: I will add one more question, my Water Sprite is always a yellow ish green color. Not pale and grows, but not bright green like it should be. Is this iron if the plants are still healthy or maybe a lighting issue? sorry another edit. Took out no yellowing. Made no sense! Here’s a pic: Looks like the light, hard to tell. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lauren A Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 Ok, I wondered that. Is it too much light or too little that would cause? It’s the Fluval 3.0 Nano so I can adjust it as necessary. Thanks so much for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mmiller2001 Posted February 11 Share Posted February 11 On 2/11/2024 at 11:05 AM, Lauren A said: Ok, I wondered that. Is it too much light or too little that would cause? It’s the Fluval 3.0 Nano so I can adjust it as necessary. Thanks so much for your help. I think it looks fine, it’s just the light making it look yellow. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lauren A Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 Ohh ok. Thank you again! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony s Posted February 11 Share Posted February 11 May actually not be enough fertilizer. Nitrates should read closer to 50 when done dosing 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony s Posted February 11 Share Posted February 11 sorry got called away, this is Irene’s explanation on easy green 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lauren A Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 (edited) On 2/11/2024 at 1:06 PM, Mmiller2001 said: I think it looks fine, it’s just the light making it look yellow. On 2/11/2024 at 3:11 PM, Tony s said: May actually not be enough fertilizer. Nitrates should read closer to 50 when done dosing Okay, thank you so much. I wondered this and might be underdosing because although it’s a 10, I usually dose .7ml instead or 1ml to take into account the fact that the tank holds less water with the space open at the surface. Hope that make sense. The tank is full of plants though. I think I will start dosing for the full 10. Those Water Sprite love sucking up nitrates. Thank you for your help! We’ll see what happens with this adjustment. On 2/13/2024 at 10:40 AM, Lauren A said: Okay, thank you so much. I wondered this and might be underdosing because although it’s a 10, I usually dose .7ml instead or 1ml to take into account the fact that the tank holds less water with the space open at the surface. Hope that make sense. The tank is full of plants though. I think I will start dosing for the full 10. Those Water Sprite love sucking up nitrates. Thank you for your help! We’ll see what happens with this adjustment. I will also take a good look at my nitrate parameters before and after dosing. Edited February 13 by Lauren A 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seattle_Aquarist Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 On 2/11/2024 at 9:48 AM, Lauren A said: Thank you! Awesome. I should start dosing immediately too. Thanks for your help! Added this as an edit to above but will repost: I will add one more question, my Water Sprite is always a yellow ish green color. Not pale and grows, but not bright green like it should be. Is this iron if the plants are still healthy or maybe a lighting issue? sorry another edit. Took out no yellowing. Made no sense! Here’s a pic: Hi @Lauren A, I didn't see any mention of the water parameters of the tank and the availability of many, but not all, nutrients are pH dependent. Without water parameters it is sort of like reaching in the sock drawer in the dark and hoping to pull out a pair. However I did notice two indicators in your photo: #1) Beside the overall chlorosis (yellowing) of the leaves of the watersprite and other species I noticed the 'cupping' of the leaf of the cryptocoryne. Both the overall chlorosis and the cupping of leaves (especially older leaves) are symptoms of insufficient available magnesium (Mg). It could be the spectrum of the light making the plant leaves look yellowish but the cupping of the leave is nutrient related. This issue is very common in the Seattle area where I live since our water is basically from reservoirs in the mountains fed by snow pack melt we have very, very soft water with little magnesium or calcium in our water. #2) If you look closely at the new leaf of the anubias you will see how the leaf vein is darker than the rest of the leaf. This issue, interveinal chlorosis, when it occurs in new leaves can signify insufficient available iron. You are feeding your plants Easy Green which does contain iron (Fe) but it is EDTA Chelated Iron which is fine if the pH of a tank is below pH@6.8 but if the pH is higher (neutral or alkaline) EDTA chelated iron becomes unavailable to plants as you can see from the graph below. How to fix these issues? If you can provide me some water parameters (pH, dKH, dGH, nitrate (NO3) ppm) I can offer some suggestions on dealing with the possible issues. Hope this helps! -Roy 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeQ Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 On 2/13/2024 at 2:31 PM, Seattle_Aquarist said: nutrients are pH dependent. You wouldn't happen to have a separate chart depicting Edta Iron VS Dpta Iron like this one would ya? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seattle_Aquarist Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 Hi @JoeQ, I've posted this on the forum several times, here is the availability of the more common forms of chelated iron including EDTA, DTPA, and EDDHA. Depending upon pH of the tank some are more effective than others at making iron available. Chelates are bonded to a mineral/metal like iron and make it available to the roots of a plant sort of like encapsulation. If the bond between the chelate and mineral are 'broken' then the mineral is no longer available to the plant. If you look at the chart below you can see that all three common forms of chelated iron are very good bond at maintaining their bonds with iron at lower pH values. However the bonds start to 'break' for the various chelates as the pH increases. For EDTA chelated iron for example the bond begins to breakdown at about pH@6.2 and as the pH increases to pH@7.0 only about 40% of the iron is available to plant. If the pH of the tank is the pH@7.5 then only 3% of the iron is available. So basically in products that use EDTA chelated iron if the pH in the tank is low you are getting some or all of the benefit of iron but if the pH is above 7.0 (neutral) or alkaline you are paying for iron but not getting little to no benefit. I find myself regularly having to explain this to planted tank hobbyists that ask "How can I have an iron deficiency? I am dosing more than the recommended amount of iron." I try to avoid the term 'iron deficiency' which some people interpret as not dosing enough iron. Instead I describe issues where a plant has iron related symptoms, most commonly interveinal chlorosis (dark leaf veins with lighter interveinal areas) on new growth or almost white new growth, as "insufficient available iron" and then explain chelates and show the chart below. Joe you asked about DTPA chelated iron. The DTPA chelate is better at maintaining the bond with iron than EDTA but it too breaks down as the pH increase just starting at a higher pH (about pH@6.7) and doesn't drop off as much at pH 7.0, pH@7.5 and is still providing benefit at pH@8.0. What about EDDHA chelated iron, why not just use it? Well it is certainly more available to plants in most pH environments we have in our tanks but it has two drawbacks. The first is price (which maybe we can live with) and the second is it turns the water purple (breaker). What I haven't talked about is a fourth option for adding iron to planted tanks....ferrous gluconate which is type of iron in Seachem Iron. Ferrous gluconate maintains iron in the ferrous (Fe+3) state and remains available for plants to uptake at most pH levels. What do I use? I have six tanks, some are low tech with roughly a neutral pH to slightly alkaline. Others are 'high tech' with a pH in the 6.2 range. Rather than dose different types of iron for my tanks I make up my own mix for micro-nutrients consisting of CSM+B (which has most micro-nutrients as well as EDTA iron), DTPA iron (powdered form, and ferrous gluconate (powdered form). What's my formula? By volume I use 4 parts CSM+B, 1 part DTPA chelated iron, and 1 part ferrous gluconate. 1/16 teaspoon per 8 gallons gives me: 0.64 ppm iron, 0.11 ppm manganese, 0.05 ppm of Boron. I also dose Seachem Flourish one a week for other micro-nutrients. Hope this helps! -Roy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeQ Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 @Seattle_Aquarist Thanks! I saw that iron specific chart and have a basic understanding of PH and iron. I have since changed to dosing GLAs Chelated Edta + Dtpa Micro mix from GLA for this reason. The nutrient and PH chart gives a better visual of that IMO. I was hoping you had the same chart but with separate iron fields showing both (edta & dtpa) Iron and its absorption related to PH for my collection. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seattle_Aquarist Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 Sorry Joe, the I have not seen the nutrient type chart for iron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeQ Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 On 2/18/2024 at 5:36 PM, Seattle_Aquarist said: Sorry Joe, the I have not seen the nutrient type chart for iron. No apologies needed, please keep me in mind if you do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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