Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have added this to my system in small doses and folier fed with it a couple of times and it seems fine to me.

Thanks,

I just ordered some from them too now

Getting worried the FT is so red I can’t see the fish, and they don’t seem to be feeding?
Mind you it has been very cold here; it’s been like 2°C in the mornings! Hope the Iron chelate doesn’t hurt them.

Thank goodness. The fishes are feeding.
But the water is still so red they can only be seen when they break the surface.

yea you put too much in.
i think the fish should be ok, i did this last year, but was already getting trout deaths - new system. It didnt speed thier deaths up that i could tell.

I like the way you look at it at different angles and you get green and yellow and even some blue.

Iron chelates FTW.

I added as a foliage spray manutec iron chelate which is dpta before I added fish
worked ok for me, I haven't added any since, as everything seems ok
I called the company and discussed toxicity with them and they assured my it would not be harmful to fish.

according to "Bright Agrotech: formula - 2mg / L every 3 weeks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qczagOJG5mI

I needed 220g of 6% iron chelate for my 8500L FT

I mixed up a batch in a bucket and poured about 2/3 of it into the FT before the panic set in.

Thats just insane, the iron i used was just the manutec iron chelates, so not exactly the same i dont think.
I didnt check the quantity needed, but i only put about 3 tablespoons worth into 5400L, which ended up being way, way too much.

I think you may be confusing the mix ratio
i.e. if you were to mix it to spray on the plants you would use 2mg/L and then you would spray the plants with that solution.
I don't think the idea is to use the measurements as if your whole system is a spray bottle.
a 1 litre mix used like this would still leave you enough to be spray your plants for quite a while
I mixed up 500 ml and still have plenty left, admittedly I only had 3 grow beds and only sprayed a few times.

Yes I thought is was a lot too.

but watch the video, that's what they say to mix into the total system water volume!

maybe somebody got their units mixed up?

I just received that Iron Chelate from green fingers (EDDHA). According to that you tub video from Nate at Agrotech, I should use about 28grams for 3000 litres of water (if the iron chelate was %7... mine is %6 so perhaps a little more like 30grams for 3000 litres)
Does this sound right?
The package I received had broken in the mail so I had to wipe away a bit from my sink... I can see what you meant by 'red' it could be used for a die!

how did you do your sums Tom? the way I understood the video from Nate at Agrotech (2/0.06) x 3000 = 100g

is my math bad? however from my experience with the redness.... maybe try 10g and see what it looks like and how the plants respond?

Sorry I was calculating for each week not for 3 weeks like in the video...

so this is my sums for 3 weeks below:


%6 Fe EDDHA
7.58\0.06
=126.33 per gallon \3.6 (to get litres)
35.09 per Litre x 3000 litres (my system)
105270 mg \ 1000
105.27 g

So every 3 weeks I am supposed to be adding 105 grams for my system, which means if I followed that I would use the 1kg that I bought in 30 weeks... seems like a lot of iron!

I think I will start by adding half that amount total (50 grams) but at 10-15 gram intervals like you suggested over a period of a week or so just to see how the fish like the murder water than is bound to occur

I would start by finding out much iron you already have in your system

if your plants are showing signs of deficiency a top up may be all that's needed

although they say to put that much in, I think it would also depend on how much your plants take out
I don't remember if they mentioned a formula for working out the absorption of the plants
more plants more iron needed, less plants less iron.

I would be very reluctant to be putting that much in to a small backyard AP

Hi Esckay

My system is 1000L FT + 3 sumps plumbed together (about 2000L) with 3 IBC GBs, 10 strawberry towers with 70 plants, 3 NFT tubes with 30 plants.
A lot of my greens have been looking a bit on the light green side and my basil has been yellow with green and before it was dark green as were my lettuce... I have been adding chelated iron now and again maybe a teaspoon every month but it has been the EDHA type and my systems Ph is around 7-7.5 most of the time and occasionally dropping to 6.5.
I did get and iron test kit... but it shows nothing in the reading (tested months ago not since then however)... I'm going to try it with a bucket of water and little of the new iron to see if I can get a reading..