Just wondering if anyone doses iron to help macroalgae growth. I was checking out some resources on this (below) but i am still cautious to do anything unless some people have tried it.

Beyond the Refugium: Seagrass Aquaria by Sarah Lardizabal - Reefkeeping.com (http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-04/sl/index.php)

Chemistry and the Aquarium (http://advancedaquarist.com/issues/aug2002/chem.htm)

dosing iron is still one of those mysterious elements, we know it has value, but not sure how much dosing is really helping o hurting...

Sarah mentioned this briefly in the interview IIRC

the only things im dosing are calcium, iodine, strontium, and coral accel. and a drop of garlic every feeding. i used to put a dose vitamin c when i had my clown. some article said vitamin c help wt lateral line disease commonly seen in clown fish. my vit c went out. i should get more.. in general its good to boost their immune system =]

In the fear of straying from topic,

iglowce, be carefull with iodine. I use to test and dose iodine before i saw the tragedy that could of been related to iodine. Ill see if i can find the article but the only thing that was changed in the tanks routine was iodine. and everything in it died and they had to start over. I just wanted to let you know. Are you testing or just dosing?

What kind of garlic are you doseing? and for what reason?

garlic = good for finicky eaters and help wt the immune system
iodine = i havnt test (oops!) but nothing dramatic happened yet.. i can slow down the dose

It is always best to test for what you are dosing. :)

i know! i should do more often

I just bought an iron supplement from Kent (as well as iodine) and i will let you know if i see any difference in my bryopsis growth ;P . Actually i do plan on setting up a controlled experiment using iron dosing, salifert's iron test kit, some algae, GSP, Acro sp., and maybe a damsel or two. From what i have found, or not found, regarding iron and our tanks, there are some important questions that i am looking to answer:

1) does dosing iron boost macroalgae growth?
1.1) does macro darken in color with increased iron?
1.2) does macro's oxygen production increase with increased iron?
1.3) how much iron is too much for macro?
2) does dosing iron boost nuisance algae growth?
3) " " " phytoplankton growth?
4) does iron help coral growth (of various species)?
5) At what level does iron become harmful to corals?
6) " " " " " " to fish?

I am going to start running this study soon and i will keep you all posted on the results. Hey, this may be another good reason for a video cast!

For sure there is a lot of black magic in any hobby along with anecdotal evidence. So I guess it’s ok to add some of my own. I started dosing Iron at about 25% of the recommended rate. My Cheato. Definitely grows faster now but is not any darker. The better benefit is that my Avelopora, close cousin to Gonipora, opens more and bigger.

I also dose iodine, magnesium, strontium. I have heard really beneficial things about dosing potassium. In fact, one of the pros that I've heard about it are coral coloring. So far, I haven't seen a test kit for potassium though.

I'll be very interested to hear how your iron experiment works out!

It's amazing how so many of these molecules are actually in pretty high abundance in the ocean (including copper!), but when we dose them in our tanks, they can easily become toxic. They must somehow be very different salt compounds....

I just started dosing iron in my nano, at about half of the recommended rate. Interesting thing about Kent products in this way. I have some Purple-up, Kent Iodine, and Kent iron and all say to dose 1cc for every 10 gallons (5ml per 100 gallons) once a week. Do they really have any idea, or are they just guessing? I find it hard to believe that three very different products have the exact same dosage rate.

Oh, and btw Rob i follow your suggestion with the iodine, i dose half the amount at half the rate (.5 ml every other week). Not to be too far off with this, but a quick question about that. Can you use the Kent Iodine for iodine dips?