Adding an iron based fertilizer

[RodneyL001]

Will a plant fertilizer that has iron added to it have a detrimental impact on the water quality in my discus tank?

[exv152]

No, I do it all the time, as long as you keep the iron at 0.1 mg/l it should not harm the fish in anyway.

[Harriett]

Ditto that response!
Harriett

[rich815]

I've been dosing TPN, Flourish, and CSM+B (though not all at the same time) in my tank since at least last June (when I added the discus) and have had no ill effects that I can see. I'm pretty heavily planted and as I understand it iron uptake in plants is pretty fast so it's not in the water column long (or it settles into the substrate).

[RodneyL001]

Thanks for the replys, I decided to try adding a fertilizer to my quarantine tank, I have some young angels that I am growing out in there now. If it works out for me, I'll add the fertilizer to my display tank.

[exv152]

Does your quarantine tank contain plants? Otherwise adding ferts to an empty tank will quickly promote algae growth.

[RodneyL001]

Yes, I added some wisteria, java moss and anubias in there, which I also have in my display tank. I may price an inexpensive co2 unit so I can try my hand at that. I got some flourish to use as my fertilizer.

[exv152]

Good choice. Do you have some basic test kits too? Like ph, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, kh and gh?

[RodneyL001]

I do have some API test bottles for all of the above.Although I don't test for ammonia or nitrites much because my tank is fully cycled. I only test GH, KH & pH on occasion.