Diy iron supplement help

[Cory]

I want to make an iron supplement to dose my tank.

Ive got two ingredients:
-Iron Sulfate pills 65mg elemental iron
-Tri-sodium citrate dihydrate

Tank is roughly 160 gallons net. Thanks for the help.

 

[Cory]

Id like to make iron citrate fwiw.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I now recommend an easier product using Fergon tablets from a drug store, but here's a recipe I published years ago:

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Iron In A Reef Tank

Randy discusses iron and its usage in our aquariums.

reefs.com

Iron in Reef Tanks: How Much and What Form?
Deciding how much iron to add is fairly easy because, in my experience, it doesn’t seem to matter too much. Presumably, once you add enough to eliminate iron as a limiting nutrient, extra iron does not apparently cause harm (at least that I’ve detected in my tanks or heard of from others). I selected a dose of about 0.1 to 0.3 mL of a solution containing 5 g of iron (as 25 g of ferrous sulfate heptahydrate) in 250 mL of water containing 50.7 g of sodium citrate dihydrate. This liquid is dosed 2-3 times per week to my system with a total water volume of about 250 gallons. This iron(II) citrate has turned brown and cloudy since I first made up the bottle years ago, suggesting that it is oxidizing to iron(III) and some is precipitating from solution, but I still use it. Over the past 4 years, I’ve dosed nearly all of the 5 grams of actual iron to my tank.

 

[Cory]

I now recommend an easier product using Fergon tablets from a drug store, but here's a recipe I published years ago:

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Iron In A Reef Tank

Randy discusses iron and its usage in our aquariums.

reefs.com

Iron in Reef Tanks: How Much and What Form?
Deciding how much iron to add is fairly easy because, in my experience, it doesn’t seem to matter too much. Presumably, once you add enough to eliminate iron as a limiting nutrient, extra iron does not apparently cause harm (at least that I’ve detected in my tanks or heard of from others). I selected a dose of about 0.1 to 0.3 mL of a solution containing 5 g of iron (as 25 g of ferrous sulfate heptahydrate) in 250 mL of water containing 50.7 g of sodium citrate dihydrate. This liquid is dosed 2-3 times per week to my system with a total water volume of about 250 gallons. This iron(II) citrate has turned brown and cloudy since I first made up the bottle years ago, suggesting that it is oxidizing to iron(III) and some is precipitating from solution, but I still use it. Over the past 4 years, I’ve dosed nearly all of the 5 grams of actual iron to my tank.

Thanks Randy. Do you know how much of this iron pill id need to add for that solution? Pic attatched.

Also do you know how much iron each dose is added?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

There is 65 mg of iron in each tablet. if you really water to make the recipe on the scale I did (5 grams of iron), you would need 5 grams/0.065 g = 77 pills.

No need to make so much at once, though.

 

[Cory]

77 pills! Wow lol. Its a good thing i bought two bottles. I wonder if they will dissolve easily.

I was going to do the fergon tablets recommendation but i already shipped and got the product from the states (im in Canada). Its not easy to find both those here (citrate and iron sulphate). But mainly im trying to follow Glenn fs iron dosing and i read he uses iron citrate.

Any difference you suspect between iron citrate and ferrous gluconate? Does iron gluconate also bind po4?

 

[Cory]

I made the iron citrate solution. A couple of concerns are that i couldn't dissolve all the sodium citrate into 250 ml of ro water. There was a syrup at the bottom. Then i placed all 77 pills into this and shook it up but there are a lot of white solids. The water turned brownish and smells like iron. I love that smell. How much iron is in a ml of this for 100 gallons?

One other question. Does iron citrate lower alkalinity or ph?

 

[Cory]

Here is what it looked like tbe next day. Whats all the undisolved stuff?