Terry,
I started an macro algae refugium with Caulerpa racemosa about 7 weeks ago to help with both nitrate and Phosphate control and I am dosing it also with an iron supplement. I am adding one drop per day to the 4.75 gallon refugium. This seems too little at first but it is based closely on the manufacturers recommendation of 8 drops per 50 gallons per day. The refugium is gravity fed with a ball valve on the intake side to shut down the flow and this allows me to just treat the refugium. A small pump maintains circulation. I let the Caulerpa take up iron for two hours. Afterwhich I then turn the gravity flow back on and this 4.75 gallons is then diluted by the other 90 gallons in my system. I prefer to run my refugium this way until the long term effects pro or con are noted by others who may be dosing their systems based on the capacity of their tanks and the refugium. This is what I noticed: When the lights come on, I can see new growth of the algae and the grapes are pale in color. But upon inspection two hours after dosing, all the pale grapes have changed to light green and eventually change to dark green as they grow. I cannot say for sure if its the iron supplement by itself or could it be in combination with photosynthesis that cause's the greening up of the grapes. But then I decided to increase the dose to four drops. Afterwhich on the following days, I did not see pale grapes. All the small grapes were light green. This gives some evidense to lean towards the iron supplement as having more influence on the color. But other factors come into play here. My last test's for nitrate and phosphate were reading 24 ppm nitrate ion and 0.08 ppm phosphate and after placing phosphate remover in service, it may now become the limiting factor for the successfull growth of the algae. My aim is not to make PO4 undetectable but just to maintain it at a manageable level. I believe long term use of the refugium and iron dosing will make it clear as to it's benefits. Two of my daylight compacts were recently replaced and there is a noticeable difference in expansion and better appearance in two of my LPS. One is an Elegence and the other is an Alveopora. At this time, I don't think the iron dosing has much influence on my corals due to the very small dose the system receives overall. Time will tell. Bob.
I started an macro algae refugium with Caulerpa racemosa about 7 weeks ago to help with both nitrate and Phosphate control and I am dosing it also with an iron supplement. I am adding one drop per day to the 4.75 gallon refugium. This seems too little at first but it is based closely on the manufacturers recommendation of 8 drops per 50 gallons per day. The refugium is gravity fed with a ball valve on the intake side to shut down the flow and this allows me to just treat the refugium. A small pump maintains circulation. I let the Caulerpa take up iron for two hours. Afterwhich I then turn the gravity flow back on and this 4.75 gallons is then diluted by the other 90 gallons in my system. I prefer to run my refugium this way until the long term effects pro or con are noted by others who may be dosing their systems based on the capacity of their tanks and the refugium. This is what I noticed: When the lights come on, I can see new growth of the algae and the grapes are pale in color. But upon inspection two hours after dosing, all the pale grapes have changed to light green and eventually change to dark green as they grow. I cannot say for sure if its the iron supplement by itself or could it be in combination with photosynthesis that cause's the greening up of the grapes. But then I decided to increase the dose to four drops. Afterwhich on the following days, I did not see pale grapes. All the small grapes were light green. This gives some evidense to lean towards the iron supplement as having more influence on the color. But other factors come into play here. My last test's for nitrate and phosphate were reading 24 ppm nitrate ion and 0.08 ppm phosphate and after placing phosphate remover in service, it may now become the limiting factor for the successfull growth of the algae. My aim is not to make PO4 undetectable but just to maintain it at a manageable level. I believe long term use of the refugium and iron dosing will make it clear as to it's benefits. Two of my daylight compacts were recently replaced and there is a noticeable difference in expansion and better appearance in two of my LPS. One is an Elegence and the other is an Alveopora. At this time, I don't think the iron dosing has much influence on my corals due to the very small dose the system receives overall. Time will tell. Bob.
