Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have an iron deficincy in my system and am having trouble getting a powdered chelated iron from local nurseries. Every iron supplement is liquid and has lots of other metals-copper, boron, manganese, etc. I've been using a pet store pond feed that I will run out of soon and decided to compare the ingredients to some commercial fish feeds at TSC.
Everything has manganese sulfate, zinc sulfate, ferrous sulfate, copper sulfate. The commercial feeds have manganese oxide and zinc oxide. And the fish don't die, so I'm given the impression that these metals in a sulfate or oxide form are safe for fish or are so trace, that it has little to no effect. One of the commercial feeds also has iron oxide (rust?) and manganese amino acid complex, iron amino acid complex, zinc amino acid complex.
Should I be worried about all these metals in the feed? Alternatively, should I use the feed which specifically has two different forms of iron in the ingredients list?

On another note, its time to clean the computer screen. I'm trying to delete a bit of dirt that I thought was a period instead of a space. Haha.

Thanks for the help.

Ok. I'm seeing some info out there that says the oxides and sulfates are ok as long as the water is not acidic. No problem, my ph is still 8+.
Should I expect that the iron oxide/iron amino acid complex would be broken down by the bacteria/plants to solve my iron deficiency issues?

i can't answer your technical questions but i would say to go with the commercial feed.. it's made for fish, and there wouldn't be many customers for it if it killed them..
when you have a high ph, you can get nutrient lockout, usually solved by using "maxicrop with iron" - you an find it on amazon, or some hydroponic shops.. i can't speak for other "seaweed" additives

Yep,,, order some "Maxicrop+Iron" from Amazon... better than the other stuff you've been looking at...

Ok, its been ordered.